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BOTANIC GARDEN. 

A POEM, 

IN TWO PARTS. 



PART I. 



CONTAINING 



THE ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 

PART II. 
THE LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 

WITH 

PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES, 



THE SECOND AMERICAN EDITION. 



$etoHfotfe: 



Printed and sold by T. 6? J. SWORDS, Printers to the Faculty of Fhysifc 
of Columbia College, No. 160 Pearl-Street. 



ADVERTISEMENT 



SECOND AMERICAN EDITION. 



1 HE first American edition of the Botanic 
Garden was presented to the public in 1798. 
It was undertaken at the request of several 
gentlemen skilled in the science of Botany, 
who were pleased with this inimitable work 
of the great Darwin, and were desirous 
that an opportunity should be afforded their 
countrymen of possessing a book so pleasing 
in its manner, and so fruitful of instruction. 
Amongst these gentlemen was our worthy 
and highly regretted friend Dr. Elihu H. 
Smith, who, unsolicited, undertook the office 
of Editor, and, to evince his respect for the 
Author, prefixed to the volume a poetic ad- 
dress, correctly and beautifully describing the 
rise, process, and use of the art of Printing 
as connected with Science, and particularly its 
effect in spreading this Botanic Song from 



iv ADVERTISEMENT. 

Britain to the remotest corner of the new 
hemisphere, and throughout the world, and 
terminating in a prophecy which all but the 
misanthrope must wish to see fulfilled. With 

this address the great author of the Loves of 
the Plants, in a complimentary letter to Dr. 
Smith, expressed himself in terms of high 
commendation and gratification. Dr. Smith 
never enjoyed the pleasure of receiving this 
letter. Had he lived, the two amiable poets 
would unquestionably have derived much satis- 
faction from a correspondence begun in this 
way. But it is ever to be lamented that the pes- 
tilence of 1798 cut him off prematurely from 
his usefulness to his friends and to the world. 
In the present edition this address is retained; 
and care has been taken to preserve as much 
as possible the correctness which characterised, 
and which was so much admired in the first, 

New-York, 180r. 



EPISTLE 

TO THE AUTHOR OF THE BOTANIC GARDEN. 



I OR unknown ages, 'mid his wild abode, 
Speechless and rude, the human savage trode ; 
Bv slow degrees expressive sounds acquired, 
And simple thoughts in words uncouth attired. 
As growing wants and varying climes arise, 
Excite desire and animate surprise, 
Gradual his mind a wider circuit ranged, 
His manners soften'd and his language changed ; 
And grey experience, wiser than of yore, 
Bequeath'd its strange traditionary lore. 

Again long ages mark the flight of time, 
And lingering toil evolves the Art divine. 
Coarse drawings, first, the imperfect thought reveal'd ; 
Next, barbarous forms the mystic sense conceal' d ; 
Capricious signs the meaning, then, disclose ; 
And, last, the infant alphabet arose : 
From Nilus' banks adventurous Cadmus errs, 
And on his Thebes the peerless boon confers. 

Slow spread the sacred art, its use was slow : 
Whate'er the improvements later times bestow, 
Still how restrain'd, how circumscribed, its power ! 
Years raise the fruit an instant may devour. 
Fond Science wept ; the uncertain toil she view'd, 
And in the evil, half forgot the good. 
What though the sage, and though the bard inspired., 
By truth illumined, and by genius fired, 
In high discourse the theme divine prolong, 
And pour the, glowing tide of lofty song ; 



vi TO DR. DARWIN. 

To princes limited, to Plutus' sons, 

T rants of mines and heritors of thrones, 

The theme, the song, scarce touch'd the general mind; 

Lost, or secluded from opprest mankind. 

Fond SCIENCE wept ; how vain her cares she saw, 

Subject to Fortune's ever-varying law. 

Month after month a single transcript claim'd, 

The style perchance, perchance the story maim'd ;— 

* The guides to truth corrupted, or destroy 'd, 

A passage foisted, or a painful void, 

The work of ignorance, or of fraud more bold, 

To blast a rival, or a scheme uphold ;— 

Or, in the progress of the long review, 

The original perish'd as the copv grew ; 

Or, perfect both, while pilgrim bands admire, 

The instant prey of accidental fire. 

Fond Science wept; whate'er of costliest use, 

The gift and glory of each favouring Muse ; 

From even- land what genius might select ; 

What wealth might purchase, and what power protect ; 

The guides of youth, the comforters of age ; 

Swept by the besom of barbaric rage, — 

Scarce a few fragments scatter'd o'er the field, — 

Frantic, in one sad moment, she beheld. 

" Nor shall such toil my generous sons subdue ; 

" Nor waste like this again distress the view !" 

She cries : — where Harlem's classic groves 

Embowering rise, with silent flight she moves ; 

She marks Laurentius carve the beechen rind, 

And darts a new creation on his mind : 

A sudden rapture thrills the conscious shades ; 

The gift remains, the bounteous vision fades. 

Homeward, entranced, the Belgic Sire returns ; 

New hope inspires him, and new ardor burns } 

Secret, he meditates his ait by clav ; 

By night fair phantoms o'er his fancy stray ; 

Will opening morn they rush upon his soul, 

Nor cares, nor duties, banish nor control ; 

* The four following lines were supplied by a i'rieivl 



TO DR. DARWIN. vii 

Haunt his sequestered path, his social scene, 

And, in his prayers, seductive, intervene ; 

Till, shaped to method, simple, and complete, 

The filial ear the joyful tidings greet.* 

— First, their nice hands the temper'd letter frame, 

Alike in height, in width, in depth, the same ; 

Deep in the matrices secure infold, 

Aid fix within, and justify, the mould ; 

The red amalgam from the cauldron take, 

And flaming pour, and, as they pour it, shake ; 

On the hard table spread the type congeal'd, 

And smooth and polish on its marble field ; 

While, as his busy fingers either plies, 

The embn on parts of future volumes rise. 

— Next, with wise care, the slender plate they choose, 

Of shining steel, and fit, with harden'd screws, 

The shifting sliders, which the varying line 

Break into parts, or yet as one confine ; 

Whence, firmly bound, and fitted for the chase, 

Imposed, it rests upon the stony base ; 

Till, hardly driven, the many-figured quoins 

Convert to forms the accumulated lines. 

— Then, with new toil, the upright frame they shape, 

And strict connect it by the solid cap ; 

The moving head still more the frame combines ; 

The guiding shelf its humbler tribute joins ; 

While the stout winter erring change restrains, 

And bears the carriage, and the press sustains ; 

The platten these, and spindle well connect, 

Four slender bars support it, and direct, 

As the high handle, urging from above, 

Downwards and forceful bids its pressure move ; 

Beneath, with plank the patient carriage spread. 

Lifts the smooth marble on its novel bed, 

Rides on its wheeled spit in rapid state, 

Nor fears to meet the quick-descending weight. 

* Laurentius first confided the secret of his discovery to his son-in-law. — 
The reasons for the subsequent deviations from historical accuracy will be 
obvious to the poetic reader. 



viii TO DK. DARWIN. 

— Last, die wise Sire die ready form supplies, 
With cautious hands and scrutinizing eyes ; 

Fits the moist ti/m/Mi/i, — (while the Youth, intent, 
With patting balls, applies the sahle paint,) 
Then lowers the /Wv/rf, turns the flving r ounce, 
And pulls amain the forceful bar at once ; 
A second turn, a second pressure, gives, 
And on the sheet the fair impression lives. 
Raptured, the Youth and reverend Sire behold, 
Press to their lips and to their bosoms fold ; 
Mingle their sighs, ecstatic tears descend, 
And, face to face, in silent union blend : 
Fond Science triumphs, and rejoicing Fame, 
From pole to pole, resounds Laurentius' name. 

Hence, doom'd no more to barbarous zeal a prev. 
Genius and Taste th.dr treasured stores displav ; 
Nor lords, nor monks, alone, the sweets procure, 
But old and young, the humble and the poor. ' 

Hence, wide diffused, increasing knowledge flies_, 
And error's shades forsake the jaundiced eyesj 
Man knows himself for man, and sees, elate, 
The kinder promise of his future fate ; 
Nations, ashamed, their ancient hate forego, 
And find a brother where they found a foe. 

Hence, o'er the world, — (what else perchance conceal'd, 
Supprest for ages, or fore'er withheld, 
To one small town, or shire, or state, confined, 
In merit's spite to long neglect consign'd, 
The sport or victim of some envious flame, 
Whence care nor art might rescue nor reclaims- 
Flies the Botanic Song; around 
S.i> cessive nations catch the enchanting sound, 
Glow as they listen, wonder as they gaze, 
And pay the instructive page with boundless praise : 
For not to Britain's parent isle alone, 
Or w hut the East encircles with her zone, 



TO DR. DARWIN. 

The bounty flows ; but spreads to neighbouring realms, 
And a new hemisphere with joy o'erwhelms. 
Here, read with rapture, studied with delight, 
Long shall it charm the taste, the thought excite j 
And youths and maids, the parent and the child, 
Their minds illumined, and their griefs beguiled, 
By all of fancy, all of reason, moved, 
Rise from the Work invigor'd and improved. 

Nor only here, nor only now, enjoy'd: — 
Where opes the interior desolate and void ; 
Where Missisippi's turbid waters glide, 
And white Missouri pours its rapid tide; 
Where vast Superior spreads its inland sea, 
And the pale tribes near icy confines stray j 
" Where now Alaska lifts its forests rude, 
" And Nootka rolls her solitary flood ;"* 
Where the fierce sun with ray severer rains 
His floods of light o'er Amazonian plains ; 
Where, land of horrors ! roam the giant brood, 
On the bleak margin of the antarctic flood ; 
In future years, in ages long to come, — 
When redient Justice finds again her home ; — 
Known, honour'd, studied, graced with nobler fame, 
Its charms unfaded, and its worth the same, 
To vaster schemes shall light the kindling view, 
And lift to heights no earlier era knew. 
Some ardent youth, some Fair whose beauties shine, 
In mind, as person, only not divine, — 
In halls where Montezuma erst sat throned, 
Whom thirty princes as their sovereign own'd ;— 
In bowers where Manco labour'd for Peru, 
While the white thread his blest Oella drew, — 
Where Ataliba met a tyrant's rage, — > 
Entranced, shall ponder o'er the various page ; 



* This couplet is from an unpublished Poem of my friend Mr. Richard 
Alsop ; a poet who, were his ambition equal to his talents, would appear 
among the poets of his time " vtlut inter igncs lima % 

B 



x TO DR. DARWIN. 

Or, where Oregon foams along the ^ 
And seeks the fond Pacific's tranquil breast, 
With kindred spirit strike the sacred Lyre, 
And bid the nations listen and admire. 

Hence keen incitement prompt the prying mind, 
By treacherous fears nor palsied nor confined, 

Its curious search embrace the sea, and shore, 
And mine and ocean, earth and air, explore. 

Thus shall the years proceed, — till growing time 
Unfold the treasures of each differing clime ; 
Till one vast brotherhood mankind unite 
In equal bands of knowledge and of right : 
Then, the proud column, to the smiling skies, 
In simple majesty sublime shall rise, 
O'er Ignorance foil'd, their triumph loud proclaim, 
And bear inscribed, immortal, Darwin's name. 

E. H. SMITH. 

New-Tork, March, 1798. 



ADVERTISEMENT 



LONDON EDITION. 



1 HE general design of the following sheets 
is to enlist Imagination under the banner of 
Science; and to lead her votaries from the 
looser analogies, which dress out the imagery 
of poetry, to the stricter ones, which form 
the ratiocination of philosophy. While their 
particular design is to induce the ingenious to 
cultivate the knowledge of Botany, by intro- 
ducing them to the vestibule of that delightful 
science, and recommending to their attention 
the immortal works of the celebrated Swedish 
Naturalist Linnaeus. 

In the first Poem, or Economy of Vegeta- 
tion, the Physiology of Plants is delivered; 
and the operation of the Elements, as far as 
they may be supposed to affect the growth of 
Vegetables. In the second Poem, or Loves 
of the Plants, the Sexual System of Linnaeus 
is explained, with the remarkable properties 
of many particular plants. 



• 



TO 

THE AUTHOR 

OF THE 

POEM ON THE LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 

BY THE REV. W. B. STEVENS. 

WFT though thy genius, Darwin! amply fraught 
With native wealth, explore new worlds of mind ; 

Whence the bright ores of drossless wisdom brought, 
Stampt by the Muse's hand, enrich mankind ; 

Though willing Nature to thy curious eye, 
Involved in night, her mazy depths betray ; 

Till at their source thy piercing search descry 
The streams, that bathe with Life our mortal clay ; 

Though, boldly soaring in sublimer mood 

Through trackless skies, on metaphysic wings, 

Thou darest to scan the approachless Cause of Good, 
And weigh, with stedfast hand, the sum of Things ; 

Yet wilt thou, charm'd amid his whispering bowers, 
Oft with lone step by glittering Derwent stray, 

Mark his green foliage, count his musky flowers, 
That blush or tremble to the rising ray: 

While Fancy, seated in her rock-roof 'd dell, 
Listening the secrets of the vernal grove, 

Breathes sweetest strains to thy symphonious shell, 
And " gives new echoes to the throne of Love." 

Repton, Nov. 28, 1/88. 



DR. DARWIN. 

W HILE Sargent winds, with fond and curious eyes, 

Through every mazy region of M the name " 

While, as entrancing forms around him rise, 
With magic light the mineral kingdoms shine ; 

Behold! amid the vegetable bloom, 

Darwin, thy ambrosial rivers flow, 
And suns more pure the fragrant earth illume, 

As all the vivid plants with passion glow. 

Yes! and, where'er with life creation teems, 

1 trace thv spirit through the kindling whole ; 
As with new radiance to die genial beams 

Of Science, isles emerge, or oceans roll, 
And Nature, in primordial beauty, seems 

To breathe, inspired bv thee, the philosophic soul! 
R. POLWHELE, 
Kenton, near Exeter, April IS, 1T92. 



DR. .DARWIN. 



X WO Poets, (Poets, by report, 

Not oft so well agree) 
Sweet harmonist of Flora's court! 
Conspire to honour thee. 

They best can judge a Poet's worth, 
Who oft themselves have known 

The pangs of a poetic birth, 
By labours of their own. 



TO DR. DARWIN. 

We, therefore, pleased, extol thy song, 

Though various yet complete, 
Rich in embellishment, as strong 

And learn'd as it is sweet. 

No envy mingles with our praise, 

Though could our hearts repine 
At any Poet's happier lays, 

They would, they must, at thine* 

But we in mutual bondage knit 

Of Friendship's closest tie, 
Can gaze on even Darwin's wit 

With an unjaundiced eye ; 

And deem the Bard, whoe'er he be, 

And howsoever known, 
Who would not twine a wreath for thee, 

Unworthy of his own. 

WM. COWPER. 

Weston Underwood, Olney, Bucks, June 23, 1793. 



DR. DARWIN- 

As Nature lovely Science led 
Through all her flowery maze, 

The volume she before her spread 
Of Darwin's radiant lays. 

Coy Science starts — so started Eve 
At beauties yet unknown : 

" The figure that you there perceive 
(Said Nature) is your own." 



kvi TO I UK RIVER DERWENT. 

u My own ? It is : — but half so fair 
" I never Beem'd till now \ 

ki And here, too, with a soften'd air, 
u Sweet Nature ! here art thou." 

" Yes — in this mirror of the Bard 

" We both einlxllish'd shine, 
" And grateful will unite to guard 

" An aitist so divine." 

Thus Nature and thus Science spake 

In Flora's friendly bower ; 
While Darwin's glory seem'd to wake 

New life in every flower. 

This with delight two Poets heard ; 

Time verifies it daily ; 
Trust it, dear Darwin, on the word 

Of Cowper and of Hayley ! — 

W. HAYLEY. 

Earthan, near Chichester, Jane 27, 1792. 



ADDRESS TO THE RIVER DERWENT, 

On whose Banks the Author of the Botanic Garden resides. 
BY F. N. C. MUNUY, ESQ; 1~92. 

DeRWENT, like thee thy Poet's splendid song 
With sweet vicissitudes of ease and force 

Now with enchanting smoothness glides along, 
Now pours impetuous its resounding course ; 

While Science marches down tin wondering detts, 
And all the .Mums round her banners crowd. 

Pleased to assemble in thy sparry cells, 

And chant hi r lessons to thy echoes proud ; 



TO THE RIVER DERWENT. xv 

\VTiile here Philosophy and Truth display 
The shining robes those heaven-born sisters wove, 

While Favs and Graces beck'ning smooth their way, 
And hand in hand with Flora follows Love. 

Well mav such radiant state increase thy pride, 
Delighted stream ! though rich in native charms, 

Though inborn worth and honour still reside, 

Where thy chill banks the glow of Chatsworth warms. 

Though here her new-found art, as that of yore, 

The spinster Goddess to thy rule assigns ; 
Though, where her temples crowd thy peopled shore, 

Wealth gilds thy urn, and Fame thy chaplet twines. 

Ah, while thy nymphs in Derby's towered vale 
Lead their sad Quires around Milcena's bier, 

What soothing sweetness breathes along the gale, 
Comes o'er the consort's heart, and balms a brother's tear ! 



Her new-found art, ifc. Alluding to the numerous cotton mills on and 
near the river Derwent. 

Milcena's bier. Mrs. French, sister tc Mrs. Mundy. Part I. Canto III. 
1. 508. 



BOTANIC GARDEN. 

PART I. 



CONTAINING 



THE ECONOMY OF VEGETATION'. 
A POEM. 

WITH 

PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES. 



It Ver, et Venus ; et Veneris prxnuncius ante 
Pennatus graditur Zephyrus vestigia propter ; 
Flora quibus mater, praespergens ante viai 
Cimcta, coloribus egregiis et odoribus opplet. 

Lucret. 



THE SECOND AMERICAN EDITION. 



$eto*§orfe: 



Printed and sold by T. £? J. SWORDS, Printers to the Faculty of Ph; 
of Columbia College, No. 160 Pearl-Street. 



APOLOGY. 



.1 T may be proper here to apologize for many of the subsequent 
conjectures on some articles of natural philosophy, as not being 
supported by accurate investigation or conclusive experiments. 
Extravagant theories, however, in those parts of philosophy where 
our knowledge is yet imperfect, are not without their use ; as they 
encourage the execution of laborious experiments, or the investi- 
gation of ingenious deductions, to confirm or refute them. And, 
since natural objects are allied to each other by many affinities, 
every kind of theoretic distribution of them adds to our knowledge 
by developing some of their analogies. 

The Rosicrucian doctrine of Gnomes, Sylphs, Nymphs, and 
Salamanders, was thought to afford a proper machinery for a 
Botanic Poem ; as it is probable, that they were originally the 
names of hieroglyphic figures representing the elements. 

Many of the important operations of Nature were shadowed or 
allegorized in the heathen mythology, as the first Cupid springing 
from the Egg of Night, the marriage of Cupid and Psyche, the 
Rape of Proserpine, the Congress of Jupiter and Juno, the Death 
and Resuscitation of Adonis, &c. many of which are ingeniously 
explained in the works of Bacon, vol. v. p. 47. 4th edit. London, 
1778. The Egyptians were possessed of many discoveries in phi- 
losophy and chemistry, before the invention of letters ; these were 
then expressed in hieroglyphic paintings of men and animals ; which, 
after the discovery of the alphabet, were described and animated 
by the poets, and became first the deities of Egypt, and afterwards 
of Greece and Rome. Allusions to those fables were therefore 
thought proper ornaments to a philosophical poem, and are occa- 
sionally introduced either as represented by the poets, or preserved 
oa the numerous gems and medallions of antiquity. 



ARGUMENT 

OF THE 

FIRST CANTO. 



The Genius of the place invites the Goddess of Botany, 1. She descends ; 
is received by Spring, and the Elements, 59. Addresses the Nymphs 
of Fire. Star-light Night seen in the Camera Obscura, 81. I. Love 
created the Universe. Chaos explodes. All the Stars revolve. God, 97. 
II. Shooting Stars. Lightning. Rainbow. Colours of the Morning 
and Evening Skies. Exterior Atmosphere of inflammable Air. Twi- 
light. Fire-balls. Aurora Borealis. Planets- Comets. Fixed Stars. 
Sun's Orb, 115. III. 1. Fires at the Earth's Centre. Animal Incuba- 
tion, 137. 2- Volcanic Mountains. Venus vista the Cyclops, 149. 
IV. Heat confined on the Earth by the Air. Phosphoric Lights in the 
Evening. Bolognian Stone. Calcined Shells. Memnon's Harp, 173. 
Ignis Fatuus. Luminous Flowers. Glow-worm. Fire-fly. Luminous 
Sea-insects. Electric Eel. Eagle armed with Lightning, 1S9. V. 1. 
Discovery of Fire. Medusa, 209. 2. The chemical Properties of Fire. 
Phosphorus. Lady in Love, 223. 3. Gun-powder, 237. VI. Steam- 
engine applied to Pumps, Bellows, Water-engines, Corn-mills, Coining, 
Barges, Waggons, Flying-chariots, 253. Labours of Hercules. Abyla 
and Calpe, 297. VII. 1. Electric Machine. Hesperian Dragon. Elec- 
tric Kiss. Halo round the Heads of Saints. Electric Shock. Fairy- 
rings, 335. 2. Death of Professor Richman, 371. 3. Franklin draws 
Lightning from the Clouds. Cupid snatches the Thunderbolt from Ju- 
piter, 383. VIII. Phosphoric Acid and Vital Heat produced in the 
Blood. The great Egg of Night, 399. IX. Western Wind unfettered. 
Naiad released. Frost assailed. Whale attacked, 421. X. Buds and 
Flowers expanded by Warmth, Electricity, and Light. Drawings with 
colourless sympathetic Inks; which appear when warmed by the Fire, 
457. XI. Sirius. Jupiter and Semele. Northern Constellations. Ice- 
Islands navigated into the Tropic Seas. Rainy Monsoons, 497. XII. 
Points erected to procure Rain. Elijah on Mount Carmel, 549. Depar-' 
ture of the Nymphs of Fire like sparks from artificial Fireworki, 587. 



BOTANIC GARDEN. 



ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 



CANTO I. 

" UTAY your rude steps! whose throbbing breasts infold 
The legion-fiends of Glory, or of Gold ! 
Stay! whose false lips seductive simpers part, 
While Cunning nestles in the harlot-heart ! — 
For you no Dryads dress the roseate bower, 
For you no Nymphs their sparkling vases pour ; 
Unmark'd by you, light Graces swim the green, 
And hovering Cupids aim their shafts, unseen. 

" But thou ! whose mind the well-attemper'd ray 
Of Taste and Virtue lights with purer day ; 
Whose finer sense each soft vibration owns 
With sweet responsive sympathy of tones : 
So the fair flower expands its lucid form 
To meet the sun, and shuts it to the storm ; — 
For thee my borders nurse the fragrant wreath, 
My fountains murmur, and my zephyrs breathe j 
Slow slides the painted snail, the gilded fly 
Smoothes his fine down, to charm thy curious eye j 
On twinkling fins my pearly nations play, 
Or win with sinuous train their trackless way; 



So tie fair flower. 1. 13. It seems to have been the original design of the 
philosophy of Epicurus to render the mind exquisitely sensible to agreeable 
serrations, and equally insensible to disagreeable ones. 



S BOTANIC GARDEN. Part L 

Mv plumy pairs, in gay embroidery dn 
Form, with ingenious bill, the pensile nest ; 
To Love's Bweet not :s attune the listening dell, 
And Echo sounds her soft symphonious shell. 

" And, if with thee some hapless Maid should stray, 25 
Disastrous Love companion of her way, 
Oh, lead her timid steps to yonder glade, 
Whose arching cliffs depending aiders shade ; 
There, as meek Evening wakes her temperate breeze, 
And moon-beams glimmer through the trembling trees, 30 
The rills, that gurgle round, shall soothe her ear, 
The weeping rocks shall number tear for tear ; 
There, as sad Philomel, alike forlorn, 
Sings to the Night from her accustomed thorn ; 
While at sweet intervals each falling note :j 

Sighs in the gale, and whispers round the grot j 
The sister- woe shall calm her aching breast, 
And softer slumbers steal her cares to rest. — 

u Winds of the North ! restrain vour icy gales, 
Nor chill the bosom of these happy vales ! 40 

Hence in dark heaps, ye gathering Clouds, revolve ! 
Disperse, ye Lightnings ! and, ye Mists, dissolve ! 
— Hither, emerging from von orient skies, 
Botanic Goddess ! bend thy radiant eyes; 
O'er these soft scenes assume div gentle reign, 45 

Pomona, Ceres, Flora in thy train ; 
O'er the still dawn thy placid smile effuse, 
And with thy silver sandals print the dews ; 
In noon's bright blaze thy vcrmil vest unfold, 
And wave thy emerald banner starr'd with gold." 50 



Disasterous Love. 1. 26. The scenery is taken from a botanic ,<:mk-'i about 
a mile from Litchfield, where a cold bath was erected b) 
There is,a grotto surrounded bj pr of which 

i perpetual shower of water; and it is here repn I 

to l ve M<iies, as being thence a proper residence for the modern . 

id the easier to introduce die uext poem on the Loves of the Plants, 
according iu the system of Linnjeus, 






Canto I. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 7 

Thus spoke the Genius, as he stept along, 
And bade these lawns to Peace and Truth belong ; 
Down the steep slopes he led, with modest skill, 
The willing pathwav, and the truant rill, 

Stretch'd o'er the marshy vale von willowy mound, $5' 

Where shines the lake amid the tufted ground, 
Raised the young woodland, smooth'd the wavy green, 
And gave to Beaut}- all die quiet scene.— 

She comes ! — the Goddess ! — through the whispering air, 
Bright as the mom descends her blushing car ; 60 

E \:h circling wheel a wreath of flowers entwines, 
And gem'd with flowers the silken harness shines ; 
The golden bits with flowery studs are deck'd, 
And knots of flowers the crimson reins connect. — > 
And now on earth the silver axle rings, 65 

And the shell sinks upon its slender springs ; 
Light from her airy seat the Goddess boundsj 
And steps celestial press the pansied grounds. 

Fair Spring advancing calls her feather'd quire, 
And tunes to softer notes her laughing lyre ; 70 

Bids her gay hours on purple pinions move, 
And arms her Zephyrs with the shafts of Love. 
Pleased Gnomes, ascending from their earthy beds, 
Play round her graceful footsteps, as she treads ; 
Gay Sylphs attendant beat the fragrant air 75> 

On winnowing wings, and waft her golden hair ; 
Blue Nymphs emerging leave their sparkling streams, 
And Fiery Forms alight from orient beams ; 



Pleased Gnovaes. 1. 73. The Rosicrucian doctrine of Gnomes, Sylphs, 
Nymphs, and Salamanders, affords proper machinery for a philosophic poem; 
as it is probable that they were originally the names of hieroglyphic figures of 
the Elements, or of Genii presiding over their operations. The Fairies of 
more modern days seem to have been derived from them, and to have inherited 
their powers. The Gnomes and Sylphs, as being more nearly allied to mo- 
dern Fairies, are represented as either male or female, which distinguishes 
the latter from the Aurae of the Latin poets, which were only female; ex- 
cept the winds, as Zephyrus and Auster, may be supposed to have been their 
husbands. 

Part I. D 



a BOTANIC GARDEN. Part L 

Muak'd in the rose's lap fresh dews they shed, 

Or breathe celestial lustres round her head. 80 

First the fine Forms her dulcet voice requires, 
Which bathe or bask in elemental fires ; 
From each bright gem of Day's refulgent car, 
From the pale sphere of every twinkling star, 
From each nice pore of ocean, earth, and air, 85 

With eye of flame the sparkling hosts repair, 
Mix their gav hues, in changeful circles play, 
Like motes, that tenant the meridian ray. — 
So the clear lens collects, with magic power, 
The countless glories of the midnight hour ; 90 

Stars after stars, with quivering lustre fall, 
And twinkling glide along the whiten'd wall. — • 
Pleased, as they pass, she counts the glittering bands, 
And stills their murmur with her waving hands ; 
Each listening tribe with fond expectance bums, 95 

And now to these, and now to those, she turns. 

I. " Nymphs of primeval Fire! your vestal train 
Hung with gold tresses o'er the vast inane, 

Nymphs of primeval Jire. 1. 97. The fluid matter of heat is perhaps the most 
I lement in nature ; all other bodies are immersed in it, and are pre- 
served in their present state of solidity or fluidity by the attraction of their 
particles to the matter of heat. Since all known bodies are conrractible into 
i by depriving them of some portion of their heat, and as there is DO 
part of nature totally deprived of heat, there is reason to believe that the parti- 
cles of bodies do not touch, but are held towards each other by their self-attrac- 
tion, and recede from each other by their attraction to the mass of heat which 
surrounds them; and thus exist in an equilibrium between these two powers. 
If more of the matter of heat be applied to them, they recede further from each 
other, and become fluid; if still mire be applied, they take an aiirial form, 
and are termed Gasses by the modern chemists. Thus, when water is heated 
to a certain degree, it would instantly assume the form of steam, but for the 
pressure of the atmosphere, which prevents this change from taking place so 
easjl) : the same is true of quicksilver, diamonds, and of, perhaps, all other 
bodies in Nature; they would first become fluid, and then aeriform, by ap- 
propriated degrees of heat. On the contrary, this elastic matter of heat, 
termed Calorique in the new nomenclature of tin- French Academicians, is 
liable to become consolidated itself in its combinations with some b 
in nitre, and probabl) in combustible bodies, as sulphur and 
See note on I. 232 of this Canto. Modern philosophers have not yet been aWe 
todecide whether lightandheat be different fluids, or modifications of the 
same fluid, as the) have man) properties in commou. Sec note on !. 46$ of. 
this Canto. 



Canto I. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 

Pierced with your silver shafts the throne of Night, 
And charm'd young Nature's opening eyes with light ; 
When Love Divine, with brooding wings unfurl'd, 
Call'd from the rude abyss the living world. 
*' '—Let there be light! proclaim'd the Almighty Lord, 
Astonish'd Chaos heard the potent word ; — 
Through all his realms the kindling Ether runs, 
And the mass starts into a million suns ; 



When Love Divine. 1. 101. From having observed the gradual evolution 
of the young animal or plant from its egg or seed; and afterwards its suc- 
cessive advances to its more perfect state, or maturity ; philosophers of all 
ages seem to have imagined, that the great world itself had likewise its 
infancy, and its gradual progress to maturity : this seems to have given origin 
to the very ancient and sublime allegory of Eros, or Divine Love, producing 
the world from the egg of Night, as it floated in Chaos. See 1. 419 of this 
Canto. 

The external crust of the earth, as far as it has been exposed to our view, in 
mines or mountains, countenances this opinion; since these have evidently, for 
the most part, had their origin from the shells of fishes, the decomposition of 
vegetables, and the recrements of other animal materials, and must, therefore, 
have been formed progressively from small beginnings. There are likewise 
some apparently useless or incomplete appendages to plants and animals, which 
seem to show they have gradually undergone changes from their original state ; 
such as the stamens without anthers, and styles without stigmas of several 
plants, as mentioned in the note on Curcuma, vol. ii. of this work. Such as 
the halteres, or rudiments of wings of some two-winged insects ; and the paps 
of male animals ; thus swine have four toes, but two of them are imperfectly 
formed, and not long enough for use. The allantoide in some animals seems 
to have become extinct ; in others, is above tenfold the size which would seem 
necessary for its purpose. Buftbn du Cochon, T. 6. p. 257. Perhaps all the 
supposed monstrous births of Nature are remains of their habits of production 
in their former less perfect state, or attempts towards greater perfection. 

Through all his realms. 1. 105. Mr. Herschel has given a very sublime and 
curious account of the construction of the heavens, with his discovery of some 
thousand nebulse, or clouds of stars ; many of which are much larger collec- 
tions of stars than all those put together which are visible to our naked eyes, 
added to those which form the galaxy or milky zone which surrounds us. 
He observes, that in the vicinity of these clusters of stars there are propor- 
tionally fewer stars than in other parts of the heavens ; and hence he con- 
cludes that they have attracted each other, on the supposition that infinite 
space was at first equally sprinkled with them ; as if it had, at the beginning, 
been filled with a fluid mass, which had coagulated. Mr. Herschel has further 
shown, that the whole sidereal system is gradually moving round some centre, 
which may be an opake mass of matter. Philos. Trans. Vol. LXXIV. If all 
these suns are moving round some great central body, they must have had a 
projectile force, as well as a centripetal one; and may thence be supposed to 
have emerged or been projected from the material where they were produced. 
We can have no idea of a natural power which could project a sun out of 
Qhaos, except by comparing it to the explosions or earthquakes owing to the 



io BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

Earths round each sun with quick explosions burst, 

And second planets issue from the firat j 

Bend, as they journey with projectile force, 

In bright ellipses their reluctant course j 110 

Orbs wheel in orbs, round centres centres roll, 

And form, self-balanced, one revolving Whole. 

— Onward they move amid their bright abode, 

Space without bound, the bosom of their God ! 

II. " Ethereal powers! you chase the shooting stars, 115 
Or yoke the vollied lightnings to your cars, 
Cling round the aerial bow with prisms bright, 
And, pleased, untwist the sevenfold threads of light ; 
Eve's silken couch with gorgeous tints adorn, 
And fire the arrowy throne of rising Morn. 120 

— Or, plumed with flame, in gay battalions spring, 
To brighter regions borne on broader wing ; 



sudden evolution of aqueous or of other more elastic vapours; of the power 
of which, under immeasurable degrees of heat and compression, we are yet 
ignorant. 

It may be objected, that if the stars had been projected from a Chaos by 
explosions, they must have returned again into it from the known laws of 
gravitation : this, however, would not happen if the whole of Chaos, like 
grains of gun-powder, was exploded at the same time, and dispersed through 
Infinite space at once, or in quick succession, in every possible direction. The 
same objection may be stated against the possibility of the planets having been 
thrown from the sun by explosions ; and the secondary planets from the pri- 
mary ones, which will be spoken of more at large in the second Canto. But 
if the planets are supposed to have been projected from their suns, and the se- 
condary from the primary ones, at the beginning of their course, they might 
be so influenced or diverted by the attractions of the suns, or sun, in their 
vicinity, as to prevent their tendency to return into the bod) from v. hich they 
were projected. 

If these innumerable and immense suns, thus rising out of Chaos, are sup- 
posed to have thrown out their attendant planets b) new explosions, as they 
ascended; and those, their respective satellites, tilling in a moment, the im- 
mensity of space with light and motion, a grander idea cannot be conceived 
by the mind of man. 

Chase the shooting stars. 1. 115. The meteors culled shooting stars, the 
lightning, the rainbow, and the clouds, are phenomena of the lower regions 
ef the atmosphere. The twilight, the meteors called fire-balls, or t ; . 
gons, and the northern lights, inhabit the higher regions of the atmosphere, 
bee additional notes, No. I. 

Cling round the aUrial boa, 1. 117. See additional notes, No. II. 
JEw'* silken couch. 1. 111). Sec additional notes, No. III. 



Canto I. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 

Where lighter gases, circumfused on high, 
Form the vast concave of exterior skv ; 
With airy lens the scatter'd rays assault, 
And bend the twilight round the dusky vault ; 
Ride, with broad eye and scintillating hair, 
The rapid Fire-ball through the midnight air ; 



Where lighter gases. 1. 123. Mr. Cavendish has shown, that the gas cal- 
led mtlammuble air, is at least ten times lighter than common air : Mr. La- 
voisier contends, that it is one of the component parts of wa f er, and is by 
him called hsdrogene. It is supposed to afford their principal nourishment to 
vegetables, and thence to animals, and is perpetually rising from their decom- 
position : this source of it in hot climates, and in summer months, is so great 
as to exceed estimation. Now, if this light gas passes through the atmos- 
phere, without combining with it, it must compose another atmosphere over 
the aerial one, which must expand, when the pressure above it is thus taken 
away, to inconceivable tenuity. 

If this supernatural gasscous atmosphere floats upon the aerial one, like 
ether upon water, what must happen ? 1. It will flow from the line, where 
it will be produced in the greatest quantities, and become much accumulated 
over the poles of the earth. 2. The common air, or lower stratum of the at- 
mosphere, will be much thinner over the poles than at the line ; because, if 
a glass globe be filed with oil and water, and whirled upon its axis, the cen- 
trifugal power will carry the heavier fluid to the circumference, and the lighter 
will, in consequence, be found round the axis. 3. There may be a place at 
some certain latitude between the poles and the line on each side the equator, 
where the inflammable supernatant atmosphere may end, owing to the greater 
centrifugal force of the heavier aerial atmosphere. 4. Between the ter- 
mination of the aerial and the beginning of thegasseous atmosphere, the airs 
will occasionally be intermixed, and thus become inflammable by the electric 
spark. These circumstances will assist in explaining the phenomena of fire- 
balls, northern lights, and of some variable winds, and long-continued rains. 

Since the above note was first written, Mr. Volta, I am informed, has ap- 
plied ihe supposition of a supernatant atmosphere of inflammable air, to ex- 
plain some phenomena in meteorology. And Mr. Lavoisier has announced 
his design to write on this subject. Traite de Chimie, Tom. 1. I am happy 
to find these opinions supported by such respectable authority. 

Arid bend the twilight. 1. 126. The crepuscular atmosphere, or the region 
where the light of the sun ceases to be refracted to us, is estimated by phi- 
losophers to be between 40 and 50 miles high, at which time the sun is about 
18 degrees below the horizon ; and the rarity of the air is supposed to be from 
4000 to 10,000 times greater than at the surface of the earth. Cotes's Hydrost. 
p. 123. The duration of twilight differs in different seasons and in different 
latitudes. In England the shortest tw light is about the beginning of October 
and of March ; in more northern latitudes, where the sun never sinks more 
than 18 degrees below the horizon, the twilight continues the whole night. 
The time of its duration may also be occasionally affected by the varying height 
of the atmosphere. A number of observations on the duration of twilight in 
different latitudes might afford considerable information concerning the aerial 
Strata in the higher regions of the atmosphere, and might assist in determin- 
ing whether an exterior atmosphere of inflammable gas, or hydrogene, exists 
over the aerial one. 



U BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

Dart from the North on pale electric streams, 

Fringing Night's sable robe with transient beam*. 130 

— Or rein the Planets in their swift careers, 

Gilding with borroVd light their twinkling spheres ; 

Alarm with com t-hlaze the sapphire plain, 

The wan stars glimmering through its silver train ; 

Gem the bright Zodiac, stud the glowing pole, 135 

Or give the Sun's phlogistic orb to roll. 

III. Nymphs ! your fine forms with steps impassive mock 
Earth's vaulted roofs of adamantine rock; 
Round her still centre tread the burning soil, 
And watch the billowy Lavas as they boil ; 140 

Where, in basaltic caves imprisoned deep, 
Reluctant fires in dread suspension sleep; 
Or sphere on sphere in winding waves expand. 
And glad with genial warmth the incumbent land. 
So when the Mother -bird selects dieir food 145 

With curious bill, and feeds her callow brood ; 
Warmth from her tender heart eternal springs, 
And, pleased, she clasps them with extended wings. 

" Tou from deep cauldrons and unmeasured raves 
Blow flaming airs, or pour vitrescent waves ; loO 

O'er shining oceans ray volcanic light, 
Or hurl innocuous embers to the night. — 



Alarm with comet-blaze. 1. 133. Sec additional notes, No. IV. 

The Sun's phlogistic orb. 1. 136. See additional notes, No. V. 

Hound her still centre. 1. 139. Many philosophers have believed that the 
eentral parts of the earth consist of a fluid mass of burning lava, which they 
have called a sub erraneous sun ; and have supposed that it contributes to thr 
pr duction of metals, and to the growth of vegetables. See additional notes, 
No. VI. 

Or sphere on sphere. 1. 143. See additional notes, No. VII. 

Hurl innocuous embers. 1.152. The immediate cause of volcanic eruptions 
is believed i i be owing t.> the water of the sea, er from lakes or inundations, 
finding itself a passage into the subterraneous fires, which may lie at great 
depths This must first produce, by its coldness, a condensation of the va- 
pour there exi (ting, or a vacuum, and thus occasion pans of the earth's crust 
or shell to be forced down by the pressure of the incumbent atmosphere, 
Afterwards the ed into steam, produces all the ex- 

plosive effects of earthquakes. And by new accessions of water, during the 



Canto I. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 33 

While with loud shouts to Etna Hecla calls, 

And Andes answers from his beacon'd walls ; 

Sea-wilder'd crews the mountain-stars admire, 155 

And Beauty beams amid tremendous fire. 

" Thus when of old, as mystic bards presume, 
Huge Cyclops dwelt in Etna's rocky womb, 
On thundering anvils rung their loud alarms, 
And leagued with Vulcan forged immortal arms 5 160 

Descending Venus sought the dark abode, 
And sooth'd the labours of the grisly God. 
While frowning Loves the threatening falchion wield, 
And tittering Graces peep behind the shield, 
With jointed mail their fairy limbs o'erwhelm, %QS 

Or nod with pausing step the plumed helm; 
With radiant eye she view'd the boiling ore, 
Heard undismay'd the breathing bellows roar, 
Admired their sinewy arms, and shoulders bare, 
And ponderous hammers lifted high in air, J 70 

With smiles celestial bless'd their dazzled sight, 
And Beauty blazed amid infernal night. 

IV. Effulgent Maids! you round deciduous day, 
Tressed with soft beams, your glittering bands array j 
On Earth's cold bosom, as the Sun retires, 175 

Confine with folds of air the lingering fires 5 



intervals of the explosions, the repetition of the shocks is caused. These, 
circumstances were hourly illustrated by the fountains of boiling water in 
Iceland, in which the surface of the water in the boiling wells sunk down 
low before every new ebullition. 

Besides these eruptions occasioned by the steam of water, there seems to 
be a perpetual effusion of other vapours, more noxious, and ( as far as it is. 
yet known) perhaps greatly more expansile than water from the Volcanos in 
various parts of the world. As these Volcanos are supposed to be spiracula, 
or breathing holes to the great subterraneous fires, it is probable that the es- 
cape of elastic vapours from them is the cause that the earthquakes of mo- 
dern days are of such small extent compared to those of anc ent times, of 
which vestiges remain in every part of the world, and, on this account, may 
be said not only to be innocuous, but useful. 

Confine with folds of air. 1. 176. The air, like all other bad conductors of 
electricity, is known to be a bad conductor of heat ; and thence prevents the; 
heat acquired from the sun's rays by the earth's surface from being so soon 
dissipated, in the same manner as a blanket, which may be considered as a 



14 BOTANIC GARDEN". Part L 

OYr Fat's pale forms diffuse phosphoric light, 

And deck with lambent flames the shrine of Night. 

S >, warm'd and kindled by meridian skies, 

And vkw'd in darkness nidi dilated eyes, ISO 

Bologna's chalks with faint ignition blaze, 

Beccari's shells emit prismatic rays. 



9ponge filled with air, prevents the escape of heat from the person wrapped 
in it. This seems to be one cause of the great degree of cold on the tops of 
mountains, where the rarity of the air is greater, and it therefore b. conies a 
better conductor both of heat and electricity. See note on Barometz, Vol II. 
of this work. 

There is, however, another cause to which the great coldness of moun- 
tains, and of the higher regions of the atmosphere, is more immediately to 
be ascribed, explained by Dr. Darwin in the Philos. Trans. Vol. LXX\ III. 
who has there proved, by experiments with the air-gun and air-pump, that 
when any portion of the atmosphere becomes mechanically expanded, it ab- 
sorbs heat from the bodies in its vicinity. And as the air which creeps along 
the plains expands itself, by a part of the pressure being taken oft", when it 
ascends the sides of mountains, it, at the same time, attracts heat from the 
summits of those mountains, or other bodies which happen to be immersed 
m it, and thus produces cold. Hence he concludes, that the hot air at the 
bottom of the Andes becomes temperate by its own rarefaction when it as- 
cends to the city of Quito; and by its further rarefaction becomes cooled to 
the freezing point when it ascends to the snowy regions on the summits of 
those mouiuains. To this also he attributes the great degree of cold experi- 
enced by the aeronauts in their balloons ; and which produces hail in summer 
at the height of only two or three miles in the atmosphere. 

Diffuse phosphoric light. 1. 177. I have often been induced to believe, from 
observation, that the twilight of the evenings is lighter than that of the 
mornings at the same distance from noon. Some may ascribe this to the 
greater height of the atmosphere in the evenings, having been rarefied by the 
sun during the day ; but as its density must at the same time be diminished, 
its power of refraction would continue the same. I should rather suppose 
that it may be owing to the phosphorescent quality (as it is called) of almost 
all bodies ; that is, when they have been exposed to the sun, they continue to 
emit light for a considerable time afterwards. This is generally In 
arise either from such bodies giving cut the light which they had previously 
absorbed, or to the continuance of a slow combustion which the light they 
had been previoush exposed to had excited. See the next note. 

Beccari's shells. 1. 182. Beccari made many curious experiments on the 
phosphoric light, as it is called, which becomes visible on bodies brought into 
a dark room, alter having been previously exposed to the sunshine. It ap- 
pears, from these experiments, that almost all inflammable bodies possess tins 
qualit) in a greater Or Less degree: white paper or linen, thus examined, 

after having been exposed to the sunshine, is luminous to an extraordinary 
I ij ,i person, shut up in a dark room, puts one oi his hands out 
into the sun's light for a short time, and then retracts it, he will be able to 
sec that hand distinctly, and not the other. These experiments seem W 
countenance the idea of light being absorbed, and again emitted from bodies 
when the) are removed into darkness. But Beccari further pretended, uY.»- 



CaktoI. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. Iff 

So to the sacred Sun in Memnon's fane, 

Spontaneous concords quired the matin strain ; 

— Touch'd by his orient beam, responsive rings 185 

The living lyre, and vibrates all its strings ; 

Accordant aisles the tender tones prolong, 

And holy echoes swell the adoring song. 

" Tou with light Gas the lamps nocturnal feed, 
Which dance and glimmer o'er the marshy mead; 190 

Shine round Calendula at twilight hours, 
And tip with silver all her saffron flowers ; 
Warm on her mossy couch the radiant Worm, 
Guard from cold dews her love-illumined form, 

some calcareous compositions, when exposed to red, yellow, or blue light, 
through coloured glasses, would, on their being brought into a dark room, 
emit coloured lights. This mistaken fact of Beccari's, Mr. Wilson decidedly 
refutes ; and, among many other curious experiments, discovered, that if oy- 
ster-shells were thrown into a common fire, and calcined for about half an 
hour, and then brought to a person who had previously been some minutes in 
a dark room, that many of them would exhibit beautiful irises of prismatic 
colours, whence, probably, arose Beccari's mistake. Mr. Wilson hence com> 
tends, that these kinds of phosphori do not emit the light they had previously 
received, but that they are set on fire by the sun's rays, and continue for 
some time a slow combustion after they are withdrawn from the light. Wil- 
son's Experiments on Phosphori. Dodsley, 1775. 

The Bolognian stone is a selenite, or gypsum, and has been long celebrated 
for its phosphorescent quality after having been burnt in a sulphurous fire, 
and exposed, when cold, to the sun's light. It may be thus well imitated : 
Calcine oyster-shells half an hour, pulverize them when cold, and add on* 
third part of flowers of sulphur, press them close into a small crucible, and 
calcine ihem for an hour or longer, and keep the powder in a phial close stop- 
ped. A part of this powder is to be exposed for a minute or two to the sun- 
beams, and then brought into a dark room. The calcined Bolognian stone 
becomes a calcareous hepar of sulphur; but the calcined shells, as they contain 
the animal acid, may also contain some of the phosphorus of Kunkel. 

In MemnorCsfane. 1. 183. See additional notes, No. VIII. 

The lamps nocturnal. 1. 189. The ignis-fatuus, or Jack-a-lantern, so fre- 
quently alluded to by poets, is supposed to originate from the inflammable air, 
or Hydrogene, given up from morasses ; which being of a heavier kind, from 
its impurity, than that obtained from iron and water, hovers near the surface 
of the earth, and, uniting with common air, gives out light by its slow igni- 
tion. Perhaps such lights have no existence; and the reflection of a star on 
watery ground may have deceived the travellers, who have been said to be 
bewildered by them : if the fact was established, it would much contr bute to 
explain the phenomena of northern lights. I have travelled much in the night, 
in all seasons of the year, and over all kinds of soil, but never saw one of 
these Will o'wisps. 

Shine round Calendula. I. 191. See note on Tropaeolum in Vol. II. 

The radiant Worm. 1. 193. See additional notes, No. IX. 

Part I. E 



10 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

From leaf to leaf conduct the virgin light, 195 

Star of the earth, and diamond of the night. 

You bid in air the tropic Beetle burn, 

And fill with golden flame his winged urn : 

Or gild the smge with insect-sparks, that swarm 

Round the bright oar, the kindling prow alarm ; 200 

Or arm in waves, electric in his ire, 

The dread Gymnotus with ethereal fire. — 

The dread Gymnotus. 1. 202. The Gymnotus electricus is a native of the 
river of Surinam, in South- America; those which wire brought over to Eng- 
land about eight years ago were about three or four feet long, and gave an 
electric shock (as I experienced) by putting one finger on the back, near its 
head, and another of the opposite hand into the water near its tail. In their 
native country they are said to exceed twenty feet in length, and kill any 
man who approaches them in an hostile manner. It is not only to escape its 
enemies that this surprising power of the fish is used, but also to take its 
prey ; which it does by benumbing them, and then devouring them before 
they have time to recover, or by perfectly killing them ; for the quantity of 
the power seemed to be determined by the will or anger of the animal ; as it 
sometimes struck a fish twice before it was su.Rciently benumbed to be easily 
swallowed. 

The organs productive of this wonderful accumulation of electric matter 
have been accurately dissected and described by Mr. J. Hunter. Philos. 
Trans. Vol. LXV. They are so divided by membranes as to compose a very 
extensive surface, and are supplied with many pairs of nerves larger than 
any other nerves of the body : but how so large a quantity is so quickly accu- 
mulated as to produce such amazing effects in a rluid ill adapted for the pur- 
pose, is not yet satisfactorily explained. The Torpedo possesses a similar 
power in a less degree, as was shown by Mr. Walch, and another fish lately 
described by Mr. Patterson. Philos. Trans. Vol LXXVI. 

In the c instruction of the Leyden-Phial, (as it is called) which is coated 
on both sides, it is known, that above one hundred times the quantity of po- 
sitive electricity can be condensed on every square inch of the c.a ing on one 
side, than could have been accumulated on the same surface if there had baa 
no opposite coating communicating with the earth ; because the negative 
electricity, or that part of it which caused its expansion, is now drawn oft" 
through the glass. It is also well known, that the thinner the glass is (which 
is thus coated on both sides so as to make a Leyden-Phial, or plate) the more 
electricity can be condensed on one of its surfaces, till it becomes so than as 
to break, and thence discharge itself. 

Now, it is possible that the quantity of electricity condensable on one side 
of a coated phial may increase in some high ratio in respect to the thinness 
of the glass, since the power of attraction is known to decrease .is the squares 
of the distances, to which this circumstance of electricity seems to Ik ar some 
I Knee, if an animal membrane, as thin as the silk-worm spina 
d as to be charged like the Leyden bottle, without 
bursting, | < uch thin glass would be liable to do), it would be difficult to 
calculate th< immense quantity of electric fluid winch might be accumulated 
on its surface No land animals ar 

air would have been a much better medium for prodiu i 

the necessary apparatus would have been inconve- 
nient to land animals. 



Canto I. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 17 

Onward his course with waving tail he helms, 

And mimic lightnings scare the water}' realms ; 

So, when with bristling plumes the bird of Jove 205 

Vindictive leaves the argent fields above, 

Borne on broad wings the guilty world he awes, 

And grasps the lightning in his shining claws. 

V. 1. " Nymphs ! your soft smiles uncultured man subdued, 
And charm'd the Savage from his native wood ; 210 

You, while amazed his hurrying Hords retire 
From the fell havoc of devouring Fire, 
Taught the first Art ! with piny rods to raise, 
By quick attrition, the domestic blaze, 

Fan with soft breath, with kindling leaves provide, 215 

And list the dread destroyer on his side. 
So, with bright wreath of serpent-tresses crown'd, 
Severe in beauty, young Medusa frown'd : 

In his shining claws. 1. 208. Alluding to an antique gem in the collection of 
the Grand Duke of Florence. Spence. 

Of devouring Fire. 1. 212. The first and most important discovery of man- 
kind seems to have been that of fire. For many ages, it is probable fire was 
esteemed a dangerous enemy, known only b> its dreadful devastations ; and 
that many lives must have been lost, and many dangerous burns and wounds 
must have afflicted those who first dared to subject it to the uses of life. It is 
said that the tall monkies of Borneo and Sumatra lie down with pleasure round 
any accidental fire in their woods ,• and are arrived to that degree of reason, 
that knowledge of causation, that they thrust into the remaining fire the half- 
burnt ends of the branches to prevent its going out. — One of the nobles of the 
cultivated people of Otaheite, when Captain Cook treated them with tea, 
catched the boiling water in his hand from the cock of the tea-urn, and bel- 
lowed with pain, not conceiving that water could become hot, like red fire. 

Tools of steel constitute another important discovery in consequence of fire ; 
and contributed, perhaps, principally to give the European nations so great 
superiority over the American world. By these two agents, fire and tools of 
steel, mankind became able to cope with the vegetable kingdom, and conquer 
provinces of forests, which, in uncultivated countries, almost exclude the 
growth of other vegetables, and of those animals which are necessary to our 
existence. Add to this, that the quantity of our food is also increased by the 
use of fire, for some vegetables become salutary food by means of the heat used 
in cookery, which are naturally either noxious or difficult of digestion ; as pota- 
toes, kidney-beans, onions, cabbages. The cassava, when made into bread, 
is, perhaps, rendered mild by the heat it undergoes, more than by expressing 
its superfluous juice. The roots of white bryony and of arum, I am in- 
formed, lose much of their acrimony by boiling. 

Young Medusa frown'd. 1. 218. The Egyptian Medusa is represented on 
ancient gems, with wings on her head, snaky hair, and a beautiful counte- 
■oance, which appears intensely thinking; and was supposed to represent 



18 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part 1. 

Erewhile subdued, round Wisdom's j£gis roll'd, 

Hiss'd the dread snakes, and flamed in burnish'd gold ; 220 

Flash'd on her brandish'd arm the immortal shield, 

And terror lighten'd o'er the dazzled field. 

2. " Nymphs ! you disjoin, unite, condense, expand, 
And give new wonders to the Chemist's hand ; 
On tepid clouds of rising steam aspire, 225 

Or fix in sulphur all its solid fire; 
With boundless spring elastic airs unfold, 
Or fill the fine vacuities of gold ; 
With sudden flash vitrescent sparks reveal, 
By fierce collision from the flint and steel ; 230 



divine wisdom. The Grecian Medusa, on Minerva's shield, as appears on other 
gems, has a countenance distorted with rage or pain, and is supposed to re- 
present divine vengeance. This Medusa was one of the Gorgons, at first 
very beautiful, and terrible to her cnem es. M.nerva turned her hair into 
snakes; and Perseus having cut oil" her head, fixed it on the shield of that 
goddess; the sight of which then petrified the beholders. Daunet. Diet. 

Or fix in sulphur. 1. 226. The phenomena of chemical explosions cannot 
be accounted for without the supposition, that some of the bodies employed 
contain concentrated or solid heat combined with them, to which the French 
chemists have given the name of Calorique. When air is expanded in the air- 
pump, or water evaporated into steam, they drink up or absorb a great quan- 
tity of heat: from this analogy, when gun-powder is exploded, it ought to absorb 
much heat ; that is, in popular language, it ought to produce a great quantity 
of cold. When vital air is united with phlogistic matter in respiration, which 
seems to be a slow combustion, its volume is lessened; the carbonic add, 
and perhaps phosphoric acid, are produced, and heat is given out ; which, 
according to the experiments of Dr. Crawford, would seem to be deposited 
from the vital air. But as the vital air in nitrous acids is condensed from a 
light elastic gas to that ol a heav) fluid, it must possess less heat than before. 
And hence a great part of the heat winch is given out in tiring gun-powder, 
I should suppose, must reside in the sulphur or charcoal. 

Mr. Lavoisier has shown, that vital air, or Oxygene, loses less of its heat 
when it becomes one of the component parts of nitrous acid, than in any other 
of its combinations; and is hence capable of giving out a great quantity of 
heat in the explosion of gun-powder: but as there seems to be great analogy 
between the matter of heat, or Calorique, and the electric matter ; and as 
the worst conductors of electricity are believed to contain the greatest quantity 
of that tluid ; there is reason to suspect, that the worst conductors of heat 
may contain the most of that fluid ; as sulphur, wax, silk, an, glass. See 
note on 1. 1~6 of this Canto. 

Vitre. scent sparit. 1 229. When flints are struck against other flints they 
have the property of giving sparks of light ; but it seems to be an internal 
lij;lu, perhaps of electric origin, very dilicrent from the ignited sparks which 
ju BtrU( k from flint and steel. The sparks produced bj the collision of steel 
With Hint appear to be globular particles of iron, which hu\c k\n fusecL aiul 



Canto I. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 

Or mark with shining letters Kunkel's name 
In the pale Phosphor's self-consuming flame. 
So the chaste heart of some enchanted Maid 
Shines with insidious light, by Love betray'd ; 
Round her pale bosom plavs the young Desire, 
And slow she wastes by self-consuming fire. 

3. " You taught mysterious Bacon to explore 
Metallic veins, and part the dross from ore ; 
With sylvan coal in whirling mills combine 
The crystall'd nitre, and the sulphurous mine ; 
Through wiry nets the black diffusion strain, 
And close an airy ocean in a grain.— 



imperfectly scorified or vitrified. They are kindled by the heat produced by 
the collision; but their vivid light, and their fusion and vitrification are the 
effects of a combustion continued in these particles during their passage through 
the air. This opinion is confirmed by an experiment of Mr. Hawksbee, who 
found that these sparks could not be produced in the exhausted receiver. See 
Keir's Chemical Diet. art. Iron, and art. Earth vitrifiable. 

The pale Phosphor. 1. 232. See additional notes, No. X. 

'And close an airy ocean. 1. 242. Gun-powder is plainly described in the works 
of Roger Bacon, before the year 1267. He describes it in a curious manner, 
mentioning the sulphur and nitre, but conceals the charcoal in an anagram. 
The words are, sed tamen salis petrae lure mope can ubrc, et sulphuris, et sic 
facies tonitrum, et corruscationem, si scias, artificium. The words lure mope 
can ubre are an anagram of carbonum pulvere. Biograph. Britan. Vol. L 
Bacon de Secretis Operibus, Cap. XI. He adds, that he thinks, by an arti- 
fice of this kind Gideon defeated the Midianites with only three hundred 
men. Judges, Chap. VII. Chamb. Diet. art. Gun-powder. As Bacon does 
not claim this as his own invention, it is thought, by many, to have been of 
much more ancient discovery. 

The permanenflv-elasMc fluid, generated in the firing of gun-powder, is 
calculated by Mr. Robins to be about 244 if the bulk of the powder be 1. 
And that thelieat generated at the time of the explosion occasions the rare- 
fied air, thus produced, to occupy about 1000 times rhe space of the gun-pow- 
der. This pressure may therefore be called equal to 1000 atmospheres, or six 
tons upon a square inch. As the suddenness of this explosion must contribute 
much to its power, it would seem that the chamber of powder, to produce its 
greatest effect, should be lighted in the centre of it ; which, I believe, is not 
attended to in the manufacture of muskets or pistols. 

From the cheapness with which a very powerful gun-powder is likely soon 
to be manufactured from aerated marine acid, or from a new method of 
forming nitrous acid by means of manganese or other calciform ores, it may 
probably, in time, be applied to move machinery, and supersede the use of 
steam. 

There is a bitter invective in Don Quixote against the inventors of gun- 
powder, as it levels the strong with the weak, the knight cased in steel with 
the naked shepherd, those who have been trained to the sword with thosw 



20 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

Pont in dnrk chambers of cylindric brass, 

Slumbers in grim repose the sooty mass ; 

Lit by the brilliant spark, from grain to grain 245 

Runs the quick fire along the kindling train ; 

On the pain'd ear-drum bursts the sudden crash, 

Starts the red (lame, and Death pursues the flash.— 

Fear's feeble hand directs the fiery darts, 

And strength and courage yield to chemic arts ; 350 

Guilt with pale brow the mimic thunder owns, 

And Tyrants tremble on their blood-stain'd thrones. 

VI. " Nymphs! you erewhile on simmering cauldrons play'd, 
And call'd delighted Savery to your aid; 

Bade round the youth explosive Steam aspire 255 

In gathering clouds, and wing'd the wave with fire; 
Bade with cold streams the quick expansion stop, 
And sunk the immense of vapour to a drop. — 
Press'd by the ponderous air the Piston falls 
Resistless, sliding through its iron walls; 260 

who are totally unskilful in the use of it ; and throws down all the splendid 
distinctions of mankind. These very reasons ought to have been urged to 
show that the discovery of gun-powder has been of public utility, by weaken- 
ing the tyranny of the few over the many. 

Delighted Savery. 1. 254. The invention of the steam-engine for raising 
water by the pressure of the air, in consequence of the condensation of steam, 
is properly ascribed to Capt. Savery ; a plate and description of this machine 
is given in Harris's Lexicon Technicum, art. Engine. Though the Marquis 
of Worcester, in his Century of Inventions, printed in the year 1663, had de- 
scribed an engine for raising water by the explosive power of Steam long 
before Savery's. Mr. Desaguliers affirms, that Savery bought up all he 
could procure of the books of the Marquis of Worcester, and destroyed 
them, professing himself then to have discovered the power of steam by ac- 
cident, which seems to have been an unfounded slander. Savery applied it 
to the raising of water to supply houses and gardens, bur could not 
plish the draining of mines by it. Which was afterwards done by Mr. 
Newcomen and Mr. John Cowley, at Dartmouth, in the year ITU, who 
added the piston. 

A Few years a)., r o Mr. Watt, of Glasgow, much improved this machine, 
and with Mr. Boulton, of Birmingham, has applied it toa varierj of purposes, 
ouch as raising water front mines, blowing bellows to fuse the ore. suppKing 
towns with water, grinding corn, and man) other purposes. There is tea- 
son to believe it ma) in time be applied to the rowing of barges, and the 
moving of carriages along the road As the specific levit) oi air i 
lor the BUpporl 0? great burthens b) balloons, there seems no probable me- 
thod .1 flying convenient!) but by the power of steam, orsomeothei explo- 
sive material ; which another half century may probably discover. See ad 
ditional note, N<> XI 



Canto I. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 21 

Quick moves the balanced beam of giant-birth, 
Wields his large limbs, and, nodding, shakes the earth. 

" The Giant-Power from earth's remotest caves 
Lifts with strong arm her dark reluctant waves ; 
Each cavern'd rock, and hidden den explores, 265 

Drags her dark coals, and digs her shining ores, — 
Next, in close cells of ribbed oak confined, 
Gale after gale, he crowds the struggling wind ; 
The imprison'd storms through brazen nostrils roar, 
Fan the white flame, and fuse the sparkling ore. 27G 

Here high in air the rising stream he pours 
To clay-built cisterns, or to lead-lined towers ; 
Fresh through a thousand pipes the wave distils, 
And thirsty cities drink the exuberant rills. 
There the vast mill-stone, with inebriate whirl, 275 

On trembling floors his forceful fingers twirl, 
Whose flinty teeth the golden harvests grind, 
Feast without blood ! and nourish human kind. 

" Now his hard hands on Mona's rifted crest, 
Bosom' d in rock, her azure ores arrest ; 280 



Feast without blood ! 1. 278. The benevolence of the great Author of all 
things is greatly manifest in the sum of his works, as Dr. Balguy has well 
evinced in his pamphlet on Divine Benevolence asserted, printed for Davis, 
1781. Yet if we may compare the parts of nature with each other, there 
are some circumstances of her economy which seem to contribute more to 
th« general scale of happiness than others. Thus the nourishment of animal 
bodies is derived from three sources : 1. The -milk given from the mother to 
the offspring : in this excellent contrivance the mother has pleasure in af- 
fording the sustenance to the child, and the child has pleasure in receiving 
it. 2. Another source of the food of animals includes seeds, or eggs: in 
these the embryon is in a torpid or insensible state, and there is along with 
it, laid up for its early nourishment, a store of provision, as the fruit be- 
longing to some seeds, and the oil and starch belonging to others : when 
these are consumed by animals, the unfeeling seed, or egg, receives no pain, 
but the animal receives pleasure which consumes it. Under this article may 
be included the bodies of animals which die naturally. 3. But the last method 
of supporting animal bodies by the destruction of other living animals, as 
lions preying upon lambs, these upon living vegetables, and mankind upon 
them all, would appear to be a less perfect part of the economy of na- 
ture than those before mentioned, as contributing less to the sum of general 
happiness. 

Mono's rifted crest. 1. 279. Alluding to the very valuable copper-mines 
in the isle of Anglesey,, the property of the Earl of Uxbridge. 



22 BOTAXIC GARDEN*. Pakt I. 

With iron lips his rapid rollers seize 

The lengthening bars, in thin expansion squeeze ; 

Descending screws with ponderous fly-wheels wound 

The tawny plates, the new medallions round ; 

Hard dyes of steel the cupreous circles cramp, 285 

And with quick fill his missy hammers stamp. 

The Harp, the Lilv and the Lion join, 

And George and Britaiv guard the sterling coin. 

" Soon shall thy arm, unconquer'd Steam ! afar 
Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car ; 290 

Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear 
The flying-chariot through the fields of air. 
—Fair crews triumphant, leaning from above, 
Shall wave their fluttering 'kerchiefs as they move ; 
Or warrior-bands alarm the gaping crowd, 295 

And armies shrink beneath the shadow}- cloud. 

" So mighty Hercules o'er many a clime 
Waved his vast mace in Virtue's cause sublime, 

With iron lips. 1. 281. Mr. Boulton has lately constructed at Soho, near 
Birmingham, a mist magnificent apparatus for coining, which has cost him 
some thousand pounds: the whole machinery is moved by an improved 
steam-engine, which rolls the copper for half-pence finer than copper has 
before been rolled for the purpose of making money ; — it works the coupoirs, 
or screw-presses for cutting out the circular pieces of copper, and coins both 
the faces and edges of the money at the same time, with such superior ex- 
cellence, and cheapness of workmanship, as well as with marks of such 
powerful machinery, as must totally prevent clandestine imitation, and, in 
consequence, save many lives from the hand of the executioner; a circum- 
stance worthy the attention of a great minister. If a civic crown was given 
in Rome for preserving the life of one citizen, Mr Boulton should be co- 
vered with garlands of oak ! By this machinery four boys, of ten or twelve 
years old, are capable of striking thirty thousand guineas in an hour, and 
the machine itself keeps an unerring account of the pieces struck. 

Su mighty Htrciiles. 1. 297. The story of Hercules seems of great anti- 
quity, as appears from the simplicity of his dress and armour, a lion's skin 
and a club; and from the nature of mam of his exploits, the desrrocti m of 
wild beasts and robbers. This part of the history of Hercules seems to 
have related to times before the invention of the bow ami arrow, or of spin* 
ningnax. Other stories of Hercules are perhaps of liter date, and appear 
to be allegorical, as his conquering the river-god Achelous, and bringing 
Cerberus up to day-light: the former might refer to his turning the course 
ol a river, and draining a morass, and the latter to his exposing a part of 
the Bnperstition of the times. The strangling the Hon, and tearing Ins laws 
asunder, are described from a statue in the Museum Florentinum, and from 



Canto I. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 

Unmeasured strength with early art combined, 
Awed, served, protected, and amazed mankind.— 
First two dread Snakes, at Juno's vengeful nod, 
Climb'd round the cradle of the sleeping God ; 
Waked by the shrilling hiss and rustling sound, 
And shrieks of fair attendants trembling round, 
Their gasping throats with clenching hands he holds ; 
And Death untwists their convoluted folds. 
Next in red torrents from her sevenfold heads 
Fell Hydra's blood on Lerna's lake he sheds ; 
Grasps Achelous with resistless force, 
And drags the roaring River to his course ; 
Binds with loud bellowing and with hideous yell, 
The monster Bull, and threefold Dog of Hell. 

" Then, where Nemea's howling forests wave, 
He drives the Lion to his dusky cave ; 
Seized by the throat, the growling fiend disarms, 
And tears his gaping jaws with sinewy arms ; 
Lifts proud Antaeus from his mother-plains, 
And with strong grasp the struggling Giant strains ; 
Back falls his fainting head, and clammy hair, 
Writhe his weak limbs, and flits his life in air j — . 



an antique gem ; and the grasping Anteus to death in his arms, as he lifts 
him from the earth, is described from another ancient cameo. The famous 
pillars of Hercules have been variously explained. Pliny asserts that the 
natives of Spain and of Africa believed that the mountains of Abyla and 
Calpe, on each side of the straits of Gibraltar, were the pillars of Hercules; 
and that they were reared by the hands of that god, and the sea admitted be- 
tween them. Plin. Hist. Nat. p. 46. Edit. Manut. Venet. 1609. 

If the passage between the two continents was opened by an earthquake, 
in ancient times, as this allegorical story would seem to countenance, there 
must have been an immense current of water at first run into the Mediter- 
ranean from the Atlantic ; since there is at present a strong stream sets always 
from thence into the Mediterranean. Whatever may be the cause, which now 
constantly operates, so as to make the surface of the Mediterranean lower 
than that of the Atlantic, it must have kept it very much lower before a 
passage for the water through the straits was opened. It is probable, before 
such an event took place, the coasts and islands of the Mediterranean ex- 
tended much further into that sea, and were then, for a great extent of 
country, destroyed by the floods occasioned by the new rise of water, and 
have since remained beneath the sea. Might not this give rise to the flood 
©f Deucalion? See note on Cassia, Vol. II. of this work. 

Part I. F 



24 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

By steps reverted, o'er the hlood-clropp'd fen 
He tracks huge Cacus to his murderous den ; 
Where breathing flames through brazen lips he fled, 
And shakes the rock-roof d cavern o'er his head. 

u Last with wide arms the solid earth he tears, 325 

Piles rock on rock, on mountain mountain rears ; 
Heat es up huge Abi/ki on Afric's sand, 
Crowns with high Calpe Europe's salient Strand; 
Crests with opposing towers the splendid scene, 
And pours from urns immense the sea between. — • 330 

—Loud o'er her whirling flood Charybdis roars, 
Affrighted Scylla bellows round his shores ; 
Vesuvio groans through all his echoing caves, 
And Etna thunders o'er the insurgent waves* 

VII. 1. " Nymphs! your fine hands ethereal floods amass 
From the warm cushion, and the whirling glass j 336- 

Beard the bright cvlinder with golden wire, 
And circumfuse the gravitating fire. 
Cold from each point cerulean lustres gleam, 
Or shoot in air the scintillating stream. 340 

So, borne on brazen talons, watch'd of old 
The sleepless dragon o'er his fruits of gold ; 
Bright beam'd his scales, his eye-balls blazed with ire, 
And his wide nostrils breathed inchanted fire. 



Ethereal floods amass. 1. 335. The theory of the accumulation of the 
electric fluid, by means of the glass globe and cushion, is difficult to com- 
prehend. Dr. Franklin's idea of the pores of the glass being opened by the 
friction, and thence rendered capable of attracting more electric fluid, which 
it again parts with, as the pores contract again, seems analogous, in some 
measure, to the heat produced by the vibration, or condensation i I 
as when a nail is hammered or tiled till it becomes hot, as mentioned in ad- 
ditional notes, No. VII. Some philosophers have endeavoured to account 
for this phenomenon, by supposing the i \istence of two electric fluids, which 
ma) be called the vitreous and resinous ones, instead of the plus and minus 
of the same i her. lim its accumulati m on the rubbed glass bears great an- 
i on the surface of the L -Jen bottle, and cannot, 
perhaps, be explained from any known mechanical or chemical principle. 
See note <>n Gymnotus, I. 202 of this Canto. 

(*U I from each point. 1. SJ'J. Sec additional notes, No. XIII. 



Canto I. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 25 

" Tou bid gold-leaves, in crystal lantherns held, 345 

Approach attracted, and recede repell'd ; 
While paper-nymphs instinct with motion rise, 
And dancing fauns the admiring Sage surprize. 
Or, if on wax some fearless Beauty stand, 
And touch the sparkling rod with graceful hand ; 350 

Through her fine limbs the mimic lightnings dart, 
And flames innocuous eddy round her heart: 
O'er her fair brow the kindling lustres glare, 
Blue rays diverging from her bristling hair ; 
While some fond youth the kiss ethereal sips, .355 

And soft fires issue from their meeting lips. 
So round the virgin Saint in silver streams 
The holy Halo shoots its arrowy beams. 

" Tou crowd in coated jars the denser fire, 
Pierce the thin glass, and fuze the blazing wire ; 360 

Or dart the red flash through the circling band 
Of youths and timorous damsels, hand in hand. 
—Starts the quick Ether through the fibre-trains 
Of dancing arteries, and of tingling veins, 
Goad's each fine nerve, with new sensation thrill'd, 365 

Bends the reluctant limbs with power unwill'd - r 

Tou bid gold-leaves. 1. 345. Alluding to the very sensible electrometer im- 
proved by Mr. Bennet : it consists of two slips of gold-leaf suspended from 
■3. tin cap in a glass cylinder, which has a partial coating without, communi- 
cating with the wooden pedestal. If a stick of sealing-wax be rubbed for a 
moment on a dry cloth, and then held in the air, at the distance of t-xvo or three 
feet from the cap of this instrument, the gold leaves separate, such is its as- 
tonishing sensibility to electric influence ! (See Bennet on electricity. John- 
son. Lond.) The nerves of sense of animal bodies do not seem to be af- 
fected by less quantities of light or heat. 

The holy Halo. 1. 358. I believe it is not known with certainty at what 
time the painters first introduced the luminous circle round the head, to im- 
port a Saint or holy person. It is now become a part of the symbolic lan- 
guage of painting, and it is much to be wished that this kind of hieroglyphic 
character was more frequent in that art, as it is much wanted to render his- 
toric pictures both more intelligible and more sublime ; and why should not 
painting, as well as poetry, express itself in a metaphor, or in indistinct alle- 
gory ? A truly great modern painter lately endeavoured to enlarge the sphere 
of pictorial language, by putting a demon behind the pillow of a wicked man 
on his death-bed. Which, unfortunately for the scientific part of painting, 
the cold criticism of the present day has depreciated, and thus barred, per- 
haps, the only road to the farther improvement in this science. 

With new sensation thrilVd. 1. 365. There is probably a system of nerves 



26 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

Palsy's cold hands the fierce concussion own. 

And Lite clings trembling on her tottering throne. — 

So from dark clouds the playful lightning springs, 

Rives die firm oak, or prints die Fair)- -rings. 370 

2. " Nymphs! on that day ye shed from lucid eves 
Celestial tears, and breathed ethereal sighs ! 
When Richman rear'd, by fearless haste betrav'd, 
The win - rod in Nieva's fatal shade;— 

Clouds o'er the Sage, with fringed skirts succeed, 375 

Flash follows flash, the warning corks recede ; 
Near and more near he eyed, with fond amaze, 
The silver streams, and watch'd the sapphire blaze ; 
Then burst the steel, die dart electric sped, 
And the bold Sage la)- number'd with the dead ! 380 

in animal bodies for the purpose of perceiving heat; since the degree of this 
fluid is so necessary to health, that we become presently injured, either by its 
excess or defect ; and because almost every part of our bodies is supplied 
with branches from different pairs of nerves, which would not seem neces- 
sary for their motion alone. It is therefore probable, that our sensation of 
electricity is only of its violence in passing through our system, by its sud- 
denly distending the muscles, like any other mechanical violence ; and that it 
is general pain alone that we feel, and not any sensation analogous to the spe- 
cific quality of the object. Nature may seem to have been niggardly to nun- 
kind in bestowing upon them so few senses; since a sense to have perceived 
electricity, and another to have perceived magnetism, might have been of 
great service to them, many ages before these fluids were discovered by acci- 
dental experiment; but it is possible an increased number of senses might 
have incommoded us by adding to the size of our bodies. 

Palsy's cold bands. 1. 367. Paralytic limbs are in general only incapable of 
being stimulated into action by the power of the will ; since the pulse conti- 
nues to beat, and the fluids to be absorbed in them ; and it commonly happens, 
when paralytic people yawn and stretch themselves (which is not a voluntary 
notion), that the affected limb moves at the same time. The temporary mo- 
tion of a paralytic limb is likewise caused In passing the electric shock 
through it; which would seem to indicate some analog} between the electric 
fluid and the nervous fluid, which is separated from the blood by the brain, 
and thence diffused along the nerves, for the purposes of motion and sensa- 
tion. It probably destroys life, by its sudden expansion of the • 
fibres of the brain, in the .same manner as it fuses metals, ami splint) 
or stone, and removes the atmosphere when it passes fioi.i one object to 
another in a dense state. 

1'iints the Fair v -rings. 1. .170. See additional notes No. XIII. 

When Richman rear'd. 1.373. Dr. Richman, Professor of Natural Philo- 
sophy at Petersburgh, about the year 1763, elevated an insulated metallic 
tod to collect the aerial electricity, as Dr. Franklin had previous!] done at 
Philadelphia ; and as he was observing the repulsion of the balls of lus elee- 
trometer, approached too near the conductor, and receiving the lightning in hit 
bud] wi'lia loud explosion, was struck dead amidst his family. 



Canto I. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 

Nymphs! on that day ye shed from lucid eyes 
Celestial tears, and breathed ethereal sighs ! 

3. " Ton led your Franklin to your glazed retreats, 
Your air-built castles, and your silken seats ; 
Bade his bold arm invade the lowering sky, 3 

And seize the tip-toe lightnings ere they fly ; 
O'er the young Sage your mystic mantle spread, 
And wreathed the crown electric round his head.— 
Thus, when on wanton wing intrepid Love 
Snatch'd the raised lightning from the arm of Jove ; 3 

Quick o'er his knee the triple bolt he bent, 
The cluster'd darts and forky arrows rent, 
Snapt with illumined hands each flaming shaft, 
His tingling fingers shook, and stamp'd, and laugh'd ; 
Bright o'er the floor the scatter'd fragments blazed, 3' 

And gods, retreating, trembled as they gazed ; 
The immortal Sire, indulgent to his child, 
Bow'd his ambrosial locks, and Heaven, relenting, smiled. 



You led your Franklin. 1. 383. Dr. Franklin was the first that discovered 
that lightning consisted of electric matter; he elevated a tall rod with a 
wire wrapped round it, and fixing the bottom of the rod into a glass bottle, 
and preserving it from falling by means of silk strings, he found it electrified 
whenever a cloud passed over it, receiving sparks by his finger from it, and 
charging coated phials. This great discovery taught us to defend houses, 
and ships, and temples, from lightning, and also to understand that people 
are always perfectly safe in a room during a thunder storm, if they keep themselves 
at three or four feet distance from the walls; for the matter of lightning, in 
passing from the clouds to the earth, or from the earth to the clouds, runs 
through the walls of a house, the trunk of a tree, or other elevated object ; 
except there be some moister body, as an animal, in contact with them, or 
nearly so; and in that case the lightning leaves the wall or tree, and passes 
through the animal ; but as it can pass through metals with still greater faci- 
lity, it will leave animal bodies to pass through metallic ones. 

If a person, in the open air, be surprised by a thunder-storm, he will know 
his danger by observing, on a second watch, the time which passes between 
the flash and the crack, and reckoning a mile for ever) four seconds and a half, 
and a little more. For sound travels at the rate of 1142 feet in a second of 
time ; and the velocity of light, through such small distances, is not to be esti- 
mated. In these circumstances a person will be safer by lying down on the 
ground than erect, and still safer if within a few feet of his horse; which,, 
being then a more elevated animal, will receive the shock in preference, as 
the cloud passes over. See additional notes, No. XIII. 

Intrepid Love. 1. 389. This allegory is uncommonly beautiful, representing 
Divine Justice as disarmed by Divine Love, and relenting of his purpose. It 
is expressed on an agate in the Great Duke's collection at Florence. Spence. 



28 BOTANIC GARDKN. Part I. 

VIII. " "When Air's pure essence joins the vital flood, 
And with phosphoric Acid dyes the blood, 400 

Tour Virgin trains the transient heat dispart, 
And lead the solt combustion round the heart; 
Life's holy lamp with fires successive feed, 
From the crown'd forehead to the prostrate weed, 
From Earth's proud realms to all that swim or sweep, 405 
The yielding ether or tumultuous deep. 
1 'ou swell the bulb beneath the heaving lawn, 
Brood the live seed, unfold the bursting spawn ; 
Nurse with soft lap, and warm with fragrant breath 
The embrvon panting in the amis of Death ; 410 

Youth's vivid eye with living light adorn, 
And fire the rising blush of Beauty's golden morn. 

u Thus when the Egg of Night, on Chaos hurl'd. 
Burst and disclosed the cradle of the world ; 

Transient heat dispart. 1. 401. Dr. Crawford, in his ingenious work on ani- 
mal heat, has endeavoured to prove, that during the combination of the pure 
part of the atmosphere with the phlogistic part of the blood, much of the 
matter of the heat is given out from the air ; and that this is the great and 
perpetual source of the heat of animals; to which we may add, that the phos- 
phoric acid is probably produced by this combination ; by which acid the 
colour of the blood is changed in the lungs from a deep crimson to a bright 
scarlet. There seems to be, however, another source of animal heat, though 
of a similar nature; and that this is from the chemical combinations produced 
in all the glands ; since, by whatever cause any glandular secretion is increased, 
as by friction or topical inflammation, the heat of that part becomes increased 
at the same time; thus, alter the hands have been for a time 'immersed 
in snow, oncoming into a warm room, they become red and hot, without any 
increased pulmonary action. Besides this, there would seem to be another 
material received from the air by respiration ; which is s.> necessary to life, 
that the embryon must learn to breathe almost within a minute after its birth, 
or it dies. The perpetual necessity of breathing shows, that the material thus 
acquired is perpetually consuming or escaping, and, on that account, requires 
perpetual renovation.' Perhaps the spirit of animation itself is thus acquired 
from the atmosphere, which, if it be supposed to be liner or more subtle than 
the electric matter, could not long be retained in our bodies, and must there- 
fore require perpetual renovation. 

Thus when the J'Jgg of Night. 1. 413. There were two Cupids belonging to 
the ancient mythology, one much elder than the other. The elder Cupid, or 
Eros, or Divine Love, was the first that came out of the great egg of night, 
which floated in Chaos, and was broken by the horns oJ the celestial bull, 
thai i , was hatched by the warmth of the spring. He was winged and 
armed, and by his arrows and torch pierced and vivified all things, producing 
life and joy. Bacon, vol. v. p. 197. Quarto edit. Lond. irrtt. " At this 
. Aristophanes) sable-winged night produced an egg, from whence 
sprung up like a blossom Eros, the lovely, the desirable, with his glossy 



Canto I. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 29 

First from the gaping shell refulgent sprung 415 

Immortal Love, his bow celestial strung ;— 

O'er the wide waste his gaudy wings unfold, 

Beam his soft smiles, and wave his curls of gold ; — 

With silver darts he pierced the kindling frame, 

And lit with torch divine the ever-living flame." 420 

IX. The Goddess paused, admired with conscious pride 
The effulgent legions marshal'd by her side, 
Forms sphered in fire, with trembling light array'd, 
Ens without weight, and substance without shade ; 
And while tumultuous joy her bosom warms, 425 

Waves her white hand, and calls her hosts to arms. 

" Unite, illustrious Nymphs ! your radiant powers, 
Call from their long repose the Vernal Hours. 
Wake with soft touch, with rosy hands unbind 
The struggling pinions of the Western Wind; 430 

golden wings." Avibus. Bryant's Mythology, vol. ii. p. 350, second edition. 
This interesting moment of this sublime allegory, Mrs. Cosway has chosen 
for her very beaut, ful painting. She has represented Eros, or Divine Love, 
with large wings, having the strength of the eagle's wings, and the splen- 
dour of the peacock's, with his hair floating in the form of flame, and with 
a halo of light vapour round his head, which illuminates the painting, while 
he is in the act of springing forwards, and with his hands separating the 
elements. 

Of the western Wind. 1 430. The principal frosts of this country are ac- 
companied or produced by a N. E. wind, and the thaws by a S. W. wind ; the 
reason of which is, that the N. E. winds consist of regions of air brought 
from the north, which appear to acquire an easterly direction as they ad- 
vance ; and the S. W. winds consist of regions of air brought from the south, 
which appear to acquire a westerly direction as they advance. The surface 
of the earth nearer the pole moves slower than it does in our latitude ; whence 
the regions of air brought from thence move slower, when they arrive hither, 
than the earth's surface, with which they now become in contact ; that is, 
they acquire an apparent easterly direction, as the earth moves from west to 
east faster than this new part of its atmosphere. The S. W. winds, on the 
contrary, consist of regions of air brought from the south, where the surface 
of the earth moves faster than in our latitude ; and have, therefore, a west- 
erly direction when they arrive hither, by their moving faster than the sur- 
face of the earth with which they are in contact ; and, in general, the nearer 
to the west, and the greater the velocity of these winds, the warmer they 
should be in respect to the season of the year, since they have been brought 
more expeditiously from the south than those winds which have less westerly- 
direction, and have thence been less cooled in their passage. 

Sometimes I have observed the thaw to commence immediately on the 
change of the wind, even within an hour, if I am not mistaken, or sooner. 



30 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part L 

Chafe his wan cheeks, his ruffled plumes repair, 
And wring die ram-drops from his tangled hair. 

Bla/.e round each frosted rill, or Stagnant wave, 

And charm die Naiad from her silent cave ; 

Where, shrined in ice, like Niobf. she mourns, 4-JJ 

And clasps u ith hoary arms her empty urns. 

Call your bright myriads, trooping from afar, 

With beamy helms, and glittering shafts of war ; 

In phalanx linn, the Fiend of Frost assail, 

Break his white towers, and pierce his crystal mail ; 440 

To Zembla's moon-hright coasts the Tyrant bear, 

And chain him, howling, to the Northern Bear, 

" So when enormous Grampus, issuing forth 
From the pale regions of the icy North, 

Waves his broad tail, and opes his ribbed mouth, 44J 

And seeks on winnowing fin the breezy South; 



At other times, the S. W. wind has continued a day, or even two, before 
the thaw has commenced ; during which time some of the frosty air, which 
had gone southwards, is driven back over us; and, in consequence, has taken 
a westerly direction as well as a southern one. At other times, I have ob- 
served a frost, with a N. E. wind, every morning, and a thaw, with a S. W. 
wind, every noon, for several days together. See additional notes, No. 
XXXIII. 

The Fiend of Frost. I. 439. The principal injury done to vegetation by 
frost, is from the expansion of the water contained in the vessels of plants. 
Water, converted into ice, occupies a greater space than it did before, at 
appears by the bursting of bottles filled with water at the time of their freez- 
ing. Hence frost destroys those plants of our island tirst which are most 
succulent ; and the most succulent parts Hrst of other plants, as their leaves 
and last year's shoots ; the vessels of which are distended and burst by the 
expansion of their freezing fluids ; while the drier, or more resinous plants, 
as pines, yews, laurels, and other ever-greens, are less liable to injury from 
cold. The trees in vallies are, on this account, more injured by tie vernal 
frosts than those on eminences, because their early succulent shoots come 
out sooner. Hence fruit trees, covered by a six-inch coping of a wall, are 
less injured by the vernal frosts, because their being shielded from showers 
and the descending night-dews, has prevented them from being noist at the 
time of their being frozen ; which circumstance has given occasion to a vul- 
gar error amongst gardeners, who suppose frost to descend. 

As the common heat of the earth, in this climate, is 18 & 
• I' i 'i. . which will bear bending down, are easily secured tram the frost, 
by spreading them upon the ground, and covering them with straw or rein. 
This particularly suits fig-trees, as they easil} bear bending to the ground, 
and are Furnished with an acrid juice, which secures them from the depvsv 
di I'n. Mo i insects, but are, nevertheless, liable to be eaten bj mice* See -ad- 
ditional notes, No. XII. 



CAnto I. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 31 

From towns deserted rush the breathless hosts, 

Swarm round the hills, and darken all the coasts ; 

Boats follow boats along the shouting tides, 

And spears and javelins pierce his blubbery sides j 450 

Now the bold Sailor, raised on pointed toe, 

Whirls the wing'd harpoon on the slimy foe ; 

Quick sinks the monster in his oozy bed, 

The blood stain'd surges circling o'er his head, 

Steers to the frozen pole his wonted track, 455 

And bears the iron tempest on his back. 

X. " On wings of flame, ethereal Virgins! sweep 
O'er Earth's fair bosom, and complacent deep ; 
Where dwell ray vegetative realms benumb'd, 
In buds imprison'd or in bulbs intomb'd, 460 

Pervade, pellucid Forms ! their cold retreat, 
Ray from bright urns your viewless floods of heat ; 

In buds imprison'd. I. 460. The buds and bulbs of plants constitute what is 
termed by Linnseus the Hibernaculum, or winter cradle of the embryon ve- 
getable. The buds arise from the bark on the branches of trees, and the 
bulbs from the caudex of bulbous-rooted plants, or the part from which the 
fibres of the root are produced : they are defended from too much moisture, 
and from frosts, and from the depredations of insects, by various contrivances, 
as by scales, hairs, resinous varnishes, and by acrid rinds. 

The buds of trees are of two kinds, either flower-buds or leaf-buds ; the 
former of these produce their seeds, and die ; the latter produce other leaf- 
buds, or flower-buds, and die. So that all the buds of trees may be consi- 
dered as annual plants, having their embryon produced during the preceding 
summer. The same seems to happen with respect to bulbs: thus a tulip 
produces annually one flower-bearing bulb, sometimes two, and several leaf- 
bearing bulbs ; and then the old root perishes. Next year the flower-bearing 
bulb produces seeds and other bulbs, and perishes ; while the leaf-bearing 
bulb, producing other bulbs only, perishes likewise : these circumstances es- 
tablish a strict analogy between bulbs and buds. See additional notes, 
No. XIV. 

Viewless floods of heat. 1. 462. The fluid matter of heat, or Calorique, in 
which all bodies are immersed, is as necessary to vegetable as to animal ex- 
istence. It is not yet determinable whether heat and light be different mate- 
rials, or modifications of the same materials, as they have some properties 
in common. They appear to be both of them equally necessary to vegetable 
health, since, without light, green vegetables become first yellow; that is, 
they lose the blue colour, which contributed to produce the green ; and after- 
wards they also lose the yellow, and become white ; as is seen in cellery 
blanched or etiolated for the table, by excluding the light from it. 
^ The upper surface of leaves, which I suppose to be their organ of respira- 
tion, seems to require light as well as air ; since plants which grow in win- 
dows, on the inside of houses, are equally solicitous to turn the upper side of 

Part I. G 



52 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

From earth's dec]) wastes electric torrents pour, 

Or shed from heaven the scintillating shower; 

Pierce the- dull root, relax its fibre trains, 465 

Thaw the thick blood, which lingers in its veins ; 

Melt with warm breath the fragrant gums, that bind 

The expanding foliage in its scaly rind; 

their leaves to the light. Vegetables, at the same time, exude or perspire a 
great quantity from their leaves, as animals do from their lungs; this per- 
spirable matter, as it rises from their fine vessels (perhaps much finer than 
the pores of animal skin), is divided into inconceivable tenuity; and, when 
acted upon by the sun's light, appears to be decomposed ; the hydrogene be- 
comes a part of the vegetable, composing oils or resins ; and the oxygene, com- 
bined with light or calorique, ascends, producing the pure part of the atmos- 
phere, or vital air. Hence, during the light of the day, vegetables give up 
more pure air than their respiration injures ; but not so in the night, even 
though equally exposed to warmth. This single fact would seem to show, 
that light is essentially different from heat ; and it is, perhaps, by its combi- 
nation with bodies, that their combined or latent heat is set at liberty, and 
becomes sensible. See additional notes, No. XXXIV. 

Electric torrents pour. 1. 453. The influence of electricity in forwarding 
the germination of plants and their growth, seems to be pretty well esta- 
blished, though Mr. Ingenhouz did not succeed in his experiments, and thence 
doubts the success of those of others; and though M. Rouland, from his 
new experiments, believes that neither positive nor negative electricity in- 
creases vegetation, both which philosophers had previously been supporters 
of the contrary doctrine: for many other naturalists have since repeated their 
experiments relative to this object, and their new results have confirmed their 
former ones. Mr. D'Ormoy, and the two Roziers, have found the same 
success in numerous experiments which they have made in the last two years ; 
and Mr. Carmoy has siiown, in a convincing manner, that electricity acce- 
lerates germination. 

Mr. !)'«' >i m iv nut only found various seeds to vegetate sooner, and to grow 
taller, which were put upon his insulated table, and supplied with electricity, 
but also, that silk- worms began to spin much sooner which were kept elec- 
trified, than those of the same hatch, which were kept in the same place and 
manner, except that they were not electrified. These experiments of Mr. 
D'Ormov are detailed at length in the Journal de Phvsique of Roster, Tom. 
XXXV. p. 270. 

M. Bartholon, who had before written a tract on this subject, and pro- 
posed ingenious methods for applying electricity to agriculture and gardening, 
has also repeated a numerous set of experiments ; and shows, both that na- 
tural electricity, as well as the artificial, increases the growth of plants, and 
the germination of seeds ; and opposes Mr. Ingenhouz by very numerous and 
conclusive facts. lb. Tom XXXV. p. 401. 

Since by the late discoveries or opinions of the chemists, there is reason to 
believe, that water is decomposed in the vessels of vegetables ; and that the 
Hyd . or inflammable air, of which it in pari consists, contributes to 

timent of the plant, and to the production of its oils, resins, gums, 
imposes water into these two airs, 
termed Oxygene and Hydrogene, there is .i powerful analogy to induce us to 
believe, that it accelerates or contributes to the growth ol vegetation, and, 
like heat, may possibly enter into combination with man) bodies, or form the 
basil of borne yet uuanalizcd acid. 



Canto I. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 55 

And as in air the laughing leaflets play, 

And turn their shining bosoms to the ray, 470 

Nymphs ! with sweet smile, each opening flower invite, 
And on its damask eyelids pour the light. 

" So shall my pines, Canadian wilds that shade, 
Where no bold step has pierced the tangled glade, 
High-towering palms, that part the Southern flood, 475 

With shadow}* isles, and continents of wood, 
Oaks, whose broad antlers crest Britannia's plain, 
Or bear her thunders o'er the conquer' d main, 
Shout, as you pass, inhale the genial skies, 
And bask and brighten in your beamy eyes ; 480 

Bow their white heads, admire the changing clime, 
Shake from dieir candied trunks the tinkling rime ; 
With bursting buds their wrinkled barks adorn, 
And wed the timorous floret to her thorn ; 
Deep strike their roots, their lengthening tops revive, 485 
And all my world of foliage wave, alive. 

" Thus with Hermetic art, the Adept combines 
The royal acid with cobaltic mines ; 
Marks, with quick pen, in lines unseen portray'd, 
The blushing mead, green dell, and dusky glade ; 49© 

Shades, with pellucid clouds, the tintless field, 
And all the future Group exists conceal'd : 



Thm with Hermetic art. 1. 487. The sympathetic inks made by Zaffre, 
dissolved in the marine and nitrous acids, have this curious property, that 
being brought to the fire, one of them becomes green, and the other red; but 
what is more wonderful, they again lose these colours (unless the heat has been 
too great), on their being again withdrawn from the fire. Fire-screens have 
been thus painted, which, in the cold, have shown only the trunk and 
branches of a dead tree, and sandy hills, which, on their approach to the fire, 
have put forth green leaves and red flowers, and grass upon the mountains. 
The process of making these inks is very easy ; take Zafi're, as sold by the 
druggists, and digest it in aqua-regia, and the calz of Cobalt will be dissolved ; 
which solution must be diluted with a little common water, to prevent it from 
making too strong an impression on the paper; the colour, when the paper is 
heated, becomes of a fine green-blue. If Zaft're, or Regulus of Cobalt, be 
dissolved in the same manner in spirit of nitre, or aqua-fortis, a reddish colour 
is produced on exposing the paper to heat. Chemical Dictionary, by Mr. 
Keir, art. Ink Sympathetic. 



34 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

Till, waked by fire, the dawning tablet glows, 

Circe n springs the herb, the purple floret blow a ; 

Hills, roles, and woods, in bright succession rise, 495 

And all the living landscape charms his eyes. 

XI. " With crest of gold should sultry Sirius glare, 
And witli his kindling tresses scorch the air; 
With points of flame the shafts of Summer arm, 
And burn the beauties he designs to warm : — ■ 500 

— So erst when Jove his oath extorted mourn'd, 
And, clad in glory, to the Fair retum'd ; 
WTiile Loves at forky bolts their torches light, 
And resting lightnings gild the car of Night; 
His blazing form the dazzled Maid admired, 505 

Met with fond lips, and in his arms expired ; — 
Nymphs! on light pinion lead your banner'd hosts 
High o'er the cliffs of Orkney's gulphy coasts ; 
Leave on vour left the red volcanic light, 

Which Hecla lifts amid the dusky night ; 510 

Mark, on the right, the Dofrints snow-capt brow, 
Where whirling Mh-Istrome roars and foams below ; 
Watch, with unmoving eye, where Cepheus bends 
His triple crown, his scepter'd hand extends ; 
Where studs Cass i ope, with stars unknown, 515 

Her golden chair, and gems her sapphire zone ; 
Where with vast convolution Draco holds 
The ecliptic axis in his scaly folds, 
O'er half the skies his neck enormous rears, 
And with immense meanders parts the Bears; 520 

Onward the kindred Bears, with footstep rude, 
Dance round the Pole, pursuing and pursued. 

" There in her azure coif and starry stole, 
(iiv\ Ttyifyght sits, and rules the slumbering Pole ; 



\araunktwnin. 1.515. Alluding u< the star which .!j>|*-;iuil m the 
d.air ..I i;;i'.;;i ( ,jK- :i in the year 1573, which, at fust, surpassed Jupiter in Ktagi 

1 brightness, diminished l>\ degrees, and disappeared in IS months, 
it alarmed all the astronomers of the age, and » a5 esteemed a comet fan 
some.— Could this haye been the Georgium Sidusi 



Canto I. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 35 

Bends the pale moon-beams round the sparkling coast, 525 

And strews, with livid hands, eternal frost. 

There, Nymphs ! alight, array your dazzling powers, 

With sudden march alarm the torpid Hours ; 

On ice-built isles expand a thousand sails, 

Hinge the strong helms, and catch the frozen gales ; 530 



On ice-built isles. 1. 529. There are many reasons to believe, from the ac? 
counts of travellers and navigators, that the islands of ice in the higher nor- 
thern latitudes, as well as the Glaciers on the Alps, continue perpetually to 
increase in bulk. At certain times in the ice-mountains of Switzerland, 
there happen cracks which have shown the great thickness of the ice, as 
some of these cracks have measured three or four hundred ells deep. The 
great islands of ice in the northern seas near Hudson's bay, have been ob- 
served to have been immersed above one hundred fathoms beneath the surface 
of the sea, and to have risen a fifth or sixth part above the surface, and to 
have measured between three and four miles in circumference. Phil. Trans. 
No. 465. Sect. 2. 

Dr. Lister endeavoured to show, that the ice of sea-water contains some 
salt, and perhaps less air than common ice, and that it is, therefore, much 
more difficult of solution ; whence he accounts for the perpetual and great in- 
crease of these floating islands of ice. Phil. Trans. No. ?69. 

As, by a famous experiment of Mr. Boyle's, it appears that ice evapo- 
rates very fast in severe frosty weather, when the wind blows upon it ; and 
as ice, in a thawing state, is known to contain six times more cold than wa- 
ter at the same degree of sensible coldness, it is easy to understand, that 
winds blowing over islands and continents of ice, perhaps much below no- 
thing on Farenheit's scale, and coming from thence into our latitude, must 
bring great degrees of cold along with them. If we add to this the quantity 
of cold produced by the evaporation of the water, as well as by the solution 
of the ice, we cannot doubt but that the northern ice is the principal source 
of the coldness of our winters, and that it is brought hither by the regions 
of air blowing from the north, and which take an apparent easterly direc- 
tion, by their coming to a part of the surface of the earth which moves faster 
than the latitude they come from. Hence the increase of the ice in the polar 
regions, by increasing the cold of our climate, adds, at the same time, to 
the bulk of the Glaciers of Italy and Switzerland. 

If the nations who inhabit this hemisphere of the globe, instead of de- 
stroying their seamen, and exhausting their wealth in unnecessary wars, 
could be induced to unite their labours to navigate these immense masses of 
ice into the more southern oceans, two great advantages would result to man- 
kind ; the tropic countries would be much cooled by their solution, and our 
winters, in this latitude, would be rendered much milder, for perhaps a cen- 
tury or two, till the masses of ice become again enormous. 

Mr. Bradley ascribes the cold winds and wet weather which sometimes hap- 
pen in May and June, to the solution of ice-islands accidentally floating from 
the north. Treatise on Husbandry and Gardening, vol. ii. p. 437. And 
adds, that Mr. Baiham, about the year 1718, in his voyage from Jamaica to 
England, in the beginning of June, met with ice-islands coming from the north, 
which were surrounded with so great a fog, that the ship was in danger of 
Striking upon them, and that one of them measured sixty miles in length. 

We have lately experienced an instance of ice-islands brought from the 
southern polar regions, on which the Guardian struck at the beginning of 



36 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

The winged rocks to feverish climates guide, 

Where fainting Zephyrs pant upon the title ; 

Pass, where to Cf.uta Calpe's thunder roars, 

And answering echoes shake the kindred shores ; 

Pass, where with palmy plumes Canary smiles, 535 

And in her silver girdle binds her isles } 

Onward, where Nigeria dusky Naiad laves 

A thousand kingdoms with prolific waves, 

Or leads o'er golden sands her threefold train 

In steamy channels to the Fervid main ; 540 

"While swarthy nations crowd the sultry coast, 

Drink the fresh breeze, and hail the floating Frost, 

Nymphs ! veil'd in mist, the melting treasures steer, 

And cool, with arctic snows, the tropic year. 

So from the burning Line, by Monsoons driven, 545 

Clouds sail in squadrons o'er the darken'd heaven 

Wide wastes of sand the gelid gales pervade, 

And Ocean cools beneath die moving shade. 

XII. " Should Solstice, stalking thro' the sickening bowers, 
Suck the warm dew-drops, lap the falling showers ; 550 

Kneel, with parch'd lip, and bending from its brink, 
From dripping palm the scant)- river drink ; 
Nymphs ! o'er the soil ten thousand points erect, 
And high in air the electric flame collect. 



her passage from the Cape of Good-Hope towards Botany-Bay, on Decem- 
ber 22, 1789. These islands were involved in mist, were about one hundred 
and fifty fathoms long, and about fifty fathoms above the surface of the wa- 
ter. A part from the top of one of them broke off, and fell into the sea, 
causing an extraordinary commotion in the water, and a thick smoke all 
round it. 

Threefold train. 1. 539. The river Niger, after traversing an immense tract 
of populous country, is supposed to divide itself into three other great rivers; 
the Rio Grande, the Gambia, and the Senegal. Gold-dust is obtained f rem 
the sands of these rivers. 

It. wastes of sand. 1.547. When the sun is in the southern tropic, 36 
deg. distant from the zenith, the thermometer is seldom lower tha 
at Gondar, in Abyssinia, but it falls to 60 or 53 deg. when the BUD is imme- 
diately vertical ; so much does the approach of rain counteract the heat of the 
sun. Brace's Travels, vol. iii. p. 670. 

Ten thousand /mints erect. 1. 553. The solution of water in air, or in calo- 
riqoe, seems to acquire electric matter, at the same time, as appears from an 
experiment of Mr. Bennet. He put some live coals into an insulated funnel 
wl metal, and throwing on them a little water, observed, that the ascending 



Canto I. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 37 

Soon shall dark mists, with self-attraction, shroud 555 

The blazing day, and sail in wilds of cloud; 
Each silvery flower the streams aerial quaff, 
Bow her sweet head, and infant Harvest laugh. 

" Thus when Elija mark'd from Carmel's brow 
In bright expanse the briny flood below ; 560 

RolPd his red eyes amid the scorching air, 
Smote his firm breast, and breathed his ardent prayer ; 
High in the midst a massy altar stood, 
And slaughter'd offerings press'd the piles of wood ; 
While Israel's chiefs the sacred hill surround, 565 

And famish'd armies crowd the dusty ground ; 
While proud Idolatry was leagued with dearth, 
And wither'd Famine swept the desert earth. — 
" Oh, mighty Lord ! thy woe-worn servant hear, 
" Who calls thy name in agony of prayer ; 570 

" Thy fanes dishonour'd, and thy prophets slain, 
" Lo ! I alone survive of all thy train !— • 
" Oh, send from heaven thy sacred fire — .and pour 
" O'er the parch'd land the salutary shower,' — 
" So shall thy Priest thy erring flock recall,— 575 

" And speak in thunder, Thou art Lord of a//."—. 
He cried, and kneeling on the mountain-sands, 
Stretch'd high in air his supplicating hands. 
— Descending flames the dusky shrine illume, 
Fire the Avet wood, the sacred bull consume j 580 



steam was electrised plus, and the water which descended through the funnel 
was electrised minus. Hence it appears, that though clouds, by their change 
of form, may sometimes become electrised minus, yet they have, 'in general, 
an accumulation of electricity. This accumulation of electric matter also 
evidently contributes to support the atmospheric vapour when it is condensed 
into the form of clouds, because it is seen to descend rapidly after the flashes 
of lightning have diminished its quantity ; whence there is reason to conclude 
that very numerous metallic rods, with fine points erected high in the air, 
might induce it, at any time, to part with some of its water. 

If we may trust the theory of Mr. Lavoisier concerning the composition 
and decomposition, of water, there would seem another source of thunder- 
showers ; and that is, that the two gasses termed oxygene gas, or vital air, 
and hydrogene gas, or inflammable air, may exist in the summer atmosphere 
in a state of mixture, but not of combination, and that the electric spark, or 
flash of lightning, may combine them, and produce water instantaneously. 



38 BOTANIC GARD1X. Part I. 

Winged from the sea the gathering mists arise, 

And flouting waters darken all the skies; 

The King with shifted reins his chariot bends, 

And wide o'er earth the airy flood descends ; 

With mingling cries dispersing hosts applaud, 5G5 

And shouting nations own the living God." 

The Goddess ceased — the exulting tribes obey, 
Start from the soil, and win their airy way; 
The vaulted skies, with streams of transient rays* 
Shine as they pass, and earth and ocean blaze. 590 

So from fierce wars, when lawless Monarchs cease* 
Or Liberty returns with laurelPd Peace, 
Bright flv the sparks, the colour' d lustres burn, 
Flash follows flash, and flame -wing'd circles turn ; 
Blue serpents sweep along the dusky air, 595 

Imp'd by long trains of scintillating hair; 
Red rockets rise, loud cracks are heard on high, 
And showers of stars rush headlong from the sky ; 
Burst, as in silver lines thev hiss along, 
And the quick flash unfolds the gazing throng. COO 



THE' 

ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 
CANTO II. 



Part I. 



ARGUMENT 



SECOND CANTO 



Address to the Gnomes. I. The Earth thrown from a volcano of the Sun \ 
its atmosphere and ocean ; its journey through the Zodiac ; vicissitude of 
dav-light, and of seasons, 11. II. Primeval islands. Paradise, or the 
golden age. Venus rising from the Sea, 33. III. The first great earth- 
quakes ; continents raised from the Sea; the Moon thrown from a vl- 
cano, has no atmosphere, and is frozen; the Earth's diurnal motion 
retarded; its axis more inclined; whirls with the Moon round a new 
cemre, 67. IV Formation of lime-stone by aqueous solution ; calcareous 
spar; white marble; ancient statue of Hercules resting from his labours. 
Antinous. Api llo of Belvidere. Venus de Medici. Lady Elizabeth 
Fos-er, and Lady Melbourn, by Mrs. Darner, 93. V. 1. Of morasses. 
Whence the production of salt by elutriation. Salt-mines at-CraO'W, 
115. 2 Production of nitre. Mars and Venus caught by Vulcan. 143. 
3- Production of iron. Mr. Michel's improvement of artificial mag- 
nets Uses of steel in agriculture, navigation, war, 183. 4. Production 
of Acids; whence Flint, Sea-sand, Selenite, Asbestus, Flu r, Onyx, 
Agate, Mocho, Opal, Sapphire, Ruby, Diamond. Jupiter and Europa, 
215. VI. 1. New subterraneous fires from fermentation. Production of 
Clays; manufacture of Porcelain in China ; in Italy ; in England Mr. 
Wedgwood's works at Etruria, in Staffordshire. Cameo of a Slave in 
Chains ; of Hope. Figures on the Portland or Barberini vase explained, 
271. 2. Coal; Pyrite; Naptlia ; Jet; Amber. Dr. Franklin's disco- 
very of disarming the Tempest of its lightning. Liberty of America; 
of Ireland; of France, 349. VII. Ancient central subterraneous fires. 
Production of Tin, Copper, Zink, Lead, Mercury, Platina. Gold, and 
Silver. Destruction of Mexico. Slavery of Africa, 395. VIII De- 
struction of the armies of Cambyses, 431. IX. Gnomes like stars clan 
Orrery. Inroads of the Sea stopped. Rocks cultivated. Hannibal pas- 
ses the Alps, 4'.»9. X. Matter circulates. Manures to Vegetables like 
Chyle to Animals. Plants rising from the Earth. St. Peter delivered 
frum Prison, 537. Transmigration of mutter, 375. Death and resus- 
citation of Adonis, 585. Departure of the Gnomes, oil. 



BOTANIC GARDEN. 



ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 



CANTO II. 

.TTlND ?i07v the Goddess, with attention sweet, 

Tarns to the Gnomes that circle round her feet ; 

Orb within orb approach the marshall'd trains, 

And pigmy legions darken all the plains ; 

Thrice shout, with silver tones, the applauding bands, 5 

Bow, ere she speaks, and clap their fairy hands. 

So the tall grass, when noon-tide zephyr blows, 

Bends its green blades in undulating rows ; 

Wide o'er the fields the billowy tumult spreads, 

And rustling harvests bow their golden heads. 10 

I. " Gnomes ! your bright forms, presiding at her birth, 
Clung in fond squadrons round the new-born Earth ; 
When high in ether, with explosion dire, 
From the deep craters of his realms of fire, 
The whirling Sun this ponderous planet hurl'd, tS 

And gwe the astonish'd void another world. 
When from its vaporous air, condensed by cold, 
Descending torrents into oceans roll'd; 

From the deep craters. 1 14. The existence of solar volcanos is counte- 
nanced by their analogy to terrestrial and lunar voicanos, and by the spots 
on the sun's disk, which have been shown by Dr. Wilson to be excavations 
through its luminous surface, and may be supposed to be the cavities from 
whence the planets and comets were ejected by explosions. See additional 
notes, No. XV. on solar volcanos. 

When from its vaporous air. 1 17. If the nucleus of the earth was thrown 
em from the sun by an explosion, along with as large a quantity of surround- 
ing hot vapour as its attraction would occasion to accompany it, the ponder- 
ous semi-fluid nucleus would take a spherical form, from the attraction of 



42 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part L 

And fierce attraction, with relentless force, 

Bent the reluctant wanderer to its course. 20 

" Where vet the B ill, with diamond ete, adorn* 
The Spring'.-, fair forehead, and with golden horns ; 

Where yet the Lion climbs the ethereal plain, 

And shakes the Summer from his radiant mane; 

Where Libra lifts her airy arm, and weighs, 25 

Poised in her silver balance, nights and davs ; 

With paler lustres where Aquarius burns, 

And showers the still snow from his hoarv urns ; 

Tour ardent troops pursued the flying sphere, 

Circling the starry girdle of the year ; 30 

While sweet vicissitudes of day and clime 

Mark'd the new annals of enascent Time, 

II. " Ton trod, with printless step, Earth's tender globe, 
While Ocean wrap'd it in his azure robe; 

Beneath his waves her hardening strata spread, 35 

Raised her Primeval Islands from his bed, 

its own parts, which would become an oblate spheriod from its diurnal revo« 
lurion. As the vapour cooled the water w< uld be precipitated, and an tccan 
\v<>uld surround the spherical nucleus with a superincumbent atmosphere. 
The nucleus of solar lava would likewise become harder as it became coi Ur. 
To understand how the strata of the eartli were afterwards formed tn m ihe 
sediments of this circumfluent ocean, the reader is referred to an ingenious 
Treatise on the Theory of the Earth, by Mr. Whitehursr, who was many 
years a watch-maker and engineer at Derby, but whose ingenuity, integrity, 
and humanity, were rarely equalled in any station of Life, 

While Ocean torap'd 1 34. See addkional notes, No. XVI. on the pro- 
duction of calcareous ear'h. 

Her hardening strata spread. 1 35. The granite, or moor-stone, orporphpry, 
constitute the oldest part of the gl be, since the lime-stone, shells, coral(oids a 
and other sea productions, rest upon them ; and upon these sea productions 
are found clay, iron, coal, sal", and silice us sand, or grit-stone. 1 hus there 
seem to be three divisions of the gl 'be distinctly marked: the first I su| pi se 
to have been the original nucleus of the earth, or lava projected from the 
sun j 2. over this lie the recrements of animal and vegetable natter pri duced 
in the ocean ; and, 3 over these the recrements of animal and \ 
matter produced upon the land. Besides these there are bodies which owe 
their origm to a combination of those ahead) mentioned, 
flu >r, alabaster; which seem to have derived their acids eriginall) turn the 
vegetable kingdom, and their earths bases from sea productions. See addi- 
tional lores, No. XVI on calcareous earth. 

Raise*! ber B-imeval Islands. I. 3<">. The nucleus of the earth, still covered 
with water, received perpetual increase by the immense quantities ut shell* 



Canto II. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 43 

Stretch' J her wide lawns, and sunk her winding dells, 
And deck'd her shores with corals, pearls, and shells. 

" O'er those blest isles no ice-crown'd mountains tower'd, 
No lightnings darted, and no tempests lower'd; 40 

S :>fc fell the vesper-drops, condensed below, 
Or bent in air the rain-refracted bow; 
Sweet breathed the zephyrs, just perceived and lost ; 
And brineless billows only kiss'd the coast; 
Round the bright zodiac danced the vernal hours, 45 

And Peace, the Cherub, dwelt in mortal bowers ! 

u So voung Dioxe, nursed beneath the waves, 
And rock'd bv Nereids in their coral caves, 
Charm' J the blue sisterhood with playful wiles, 
Lisp'd her sweet tones, and tried her tender smiles, 50 

Then, on her bervl throne, by Tritons borne, 
Bright rose the Goddess like the Star of morn ; 

and coralloids either annually produced and relinquished, or left after the 
dea'h of the animals These wuld gradually , b ; their different degrees of 
cohesion, be, some of them more and others less, removeable by the influence 
of solar tides, and gentle tropical breezes, which then must have probably 
expended from one pi>le to the other ; for it is supposed the moon was not vet 
produced, and that no storms, or unequal winds, had yet existence. 

Hence, then, the primeval islands bad their gradual origin, were raised but 
a few feet above the level of the sea, and were not exposed to the giea ox- 
sudden varia ions of heat and cold, as is so well explained in Mr. Whiteh,urst's 
Theory of the Earth, chap. xvi. Whence the paradise of the sacred writers, 
and the golden age of the profane ones, seems to have had a real existence. 
As there can be no rainbow when the heavens are covered with clouds, be- 
cause the sun-beams are then precluded from falling upon the rain-drops op- 
posite to the eye of the spectator, the rainbow is a mark of gentle or partial 
showers. Mr. VVhitehurst has endeavoured to show, that the priinii ive islands 
were only moistened by nocturnal dews, and not by sliowers, as occurs at rh.s 
day to the Delta of Kgypt; and is thence of opinion that the rainbow had no 
existence till after the production of mountains and continents As the salt 
of the sea has b?en gradually accumulating, being washed down into it from 
the recrements of animal and vegetable bodies, the sea must originally have 
been as fresh as river water; and as it is not yet satura ed with salt, must 
become annually more salme. See note on I. 119 of this Canto. 

So young Diane. 1. 47. There is an ancient gem representing Venus rising 
out of the ocean, supported by two Tritons. From the formality of the design, 
it would appear to be of great antiquity, before the introduction of line taste 
into the world. It is pr >bab!e that this beautiful allegory was originally an 
hieroglyphic pic lire (before the invention of letters) descriptive of the forma- 
tion of the earth from the ocean, which seems to have been an opinion of 
many of the most ancient philosophers. 



+4 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

When with soft fires the milky dawn he leads, 

And wakes to life and love the laughing meads ;— 

With rosy fingers, as uncuri'd they hung 55 

Round her fair brow, her golden locks she wrung; 

O'er the smooth surge on silver sandals stood, 

And look'd enchantment on the dazzled flood. 

The bright drops rolling from her lifted arms, 

In slow meanders wander o'er her charms, 60 

Seek round her snowv neck their lucid track, 

Pearl her white shoulders, g. m her ivory back, 

Round her fine waist and swelling bosom swim, 

And star with glittering brine each crystal limb. 

— The immortal form enamour'd Nature hail'd, 65 

And Beauty blazed to heaven and earth, unveil'd. 

III. " Ton! who then, kindling after manv an age, 
Saw, with new fires, the first volcano rage, 
O'er smouldering heaps of livid sulphur swell 
At Earth's firm centre, and distend her shell, 70 



The first volcano. 1 68. As the earth, before the existence of earthquakes, 
was nearly level, and the greatest part of it covered with sea; when the t.rst 
great tires began deep in the internal pans of it, those parts would become 
much expanded ; this expansion would be gradualh extended, as the heat in- 
creased, through the whole terraqueous globe of 7000 miles diameter ; ihe 
crust would thence, in many places, open into fissures, which, by admitting 
the sea to How in upon the fire, would produce not only a quantit) of steam 
beyond calculation, by its expansion, but would also, by its decomposition, 
produce inflammable air and viial air in quantities beyond conception, sulficient 
to elleet those violent explosions, the vestiges of which, all over the world, 
excite our admiration and our study. The difficulty of understanding bow 
subterraneous fires could exist without the presence of air, has disappeared. 
since Dr Priestley's discoveries of such great quantities of pure air. wh ch 
constitute all the acids, and, consequently, exist in all saline bodies, as sea-salt, 
nitre, lime-stone, and in all calciform ores, as manganese, calainy, ochre, 
and Other mineral substances. See an ingenious treatise on earthquakes, by 
Mr. Michel, in the Phil. Trans. 

In the first tremendous ignitions of the globe, as the continents were 
heaved up, the vallies, which now hold the sea, were formed by the earth 
subsiding into the cavities made by the rising mountains, as the s'tani which 
raised them condensed; which would thence not have an) caverns oJ great 
main benea li them, as some philosophers have imagined. 1 lie 
earthquakes of modem da)s are ot verj small extent indeed, compared to 
those ■■! ancient times, and are ingeniously compared, In M De Luc, to 
the operations of a mole-htjl, where, li- m a small cavity, are raised, f" m 
time i" iime, small quantities of lava, or pumice-stone. Monthly Review, 
June, 1790. 



Canto II. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 4.V 

Ssuv at each opening cleft the furnace glow, 

And seas rush headlong on the gulphs below.-— 

Gnomes ! how you shriek'd, when through the troubled air 

Roar'd the fierce din of elemental war; 

When rose the continents, and sunk the main, 75 

And Earth's huge sphere, exploding, burst in twain.— 

Gnomes ! how you gazed, when from her wounded side,. 

W here now the South-Sea heaves its waste of tide, 

Rose on swift wheels the Moon's refulgent car, 

Cir ling the solar orb, a sister star, 80 

Dimpled with vales, with shining hills emboss'd, 

And roll'd round earth her airless realms of frost. 

" Gnome? ! how you trembled with the dreadful force, 
When Earth, recoiling, stagger'd from her course; 

The Moon's refulgent car. 1. 79. See additional notes, No. XV. on solan 
volcanos. 

Her airless realms of frost. 1. 82 If the moon had no atmosphere at the 
time of its elevation from the earth, or if its atmosphere was afterwards 
stolen from it by the earth's attraction, the water on the moon would rise 
quickly into vapour, and the cold produced by a certain quantity of this eva- 
poration, would congeal the remainder of it. Hence it is not probable that 
the moon is at present inhabited, but, as it seems to have suffered, and to 
continue to sutfer much by volcanos, a sufficient quantity of air may, in pro- 
cess of time, be generated to produce an atmosphere, which may prevent its 
heat from so easily escaping, and its water from so easily evaporating, and 
thence become fit for -he production of vegetables and animals. 

That the moon possesses little or no atmosphere, is deduced from the undi- 
minished lustre of the stars, at the instant when they emerge from behind her 
disk. That the ocean of the moon is frozen, is confirmed from there being 
no appearance of lunar tides, which, if they existed, would cover the part 
of her disk nearest the earth. See note on Canto III. 1. 61. 

When Earth recoiling. 1. 84. On supposition that the moon was thrown 
fr m the earth by the explosion of water, or the generation of other vapours 
of greater power, the remaining part of the globe would recede from its obit 
in one direction as the moon receded in another, and that in proportion to the 
respective momentum of each, and would afterwards revolve round their com- 
mon centre of gravity. 

If the moon rose from any part of the earth except exactly at the line, or 
poles, the shock would tend to turn the axis of the earth out of its previous 
direction. And as a mass of matter rising from deep parts of the globe would 
have previously acquired less diurnal velocity than the earth's surface, from 
whence it rose, it would receive, during the time of its rising, additional velo- 
city from the earth's surface, and would, consequently, so much retard the 
motion of the earth round its axis. 



When the earth thus receded, the shock would overturn all its buddings and 
forests, and the water would rush, with inconceivable violence, over its sur- 
face, towards the new satellite, from two causes, both by its not at first acquis 



46 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

When, as her Line in slower circles spun, 85 

Aid her shock'd a\is nodded from the sun, 

With dreadful march the accumulated main 

Swept her vast wrecks of mountain, vale, and plain; 

And, whil • new tides th ■ ir shouting floods unite, 

And hail their Queen, fair regent of the night, 90 

Chain'd to one centre, whirl'd the kindred spheres, 

And mark'd with lunar cycles solar years. 

IV. " Gnomes! yon then hade dissolving Sheila distil 
From the loose summits of each shitter'd hill, 
To each fine pore and dark interstice flow, 95 

And fill with liquid chalk the mass below. 
Whence sparry forms in dusky cavern gleam 
^ ith borrow'd light, and twice refract the beam ; 
While in white beds congealing rocks beneath 
Court the nice chissel, and desire to breathe. — 100 

" Hence wearied Hercules in marble rears 
His languid limbs, and rests a thousand years ; 

ing the velocity with which the earth receded, and by the attraction of the, 
new moon, as it leaves the earth : on these accounts, at tirst there would be 
but one tide till the moon receded to a greater distance, and the earth nv ving 
round a common centre of gravity between them, the water on the side far- 
thest from the moon would acquire a centrifugal force, in respect to this com- 
mon centre, between itself and the moon. 

Dissolving Shells distil. 1. 93. The lime-stone rocks have had their origin 
from shells formed beneath the sea, the sof er strata gradually dissolving, and 
filling up the interstices of the harder ones ; afterwards, when these accumu- 
lations of shells were elevated above the warers, the upper strata became dis- 
solved by the actions of the air and dews, and tilled up the interstices beneath, 
producing solid rocks of different kinds, from the coarse lime-Stones to the 
finest marbles. When those lime-stones have been in such a situa'ion that 
the) could form perfect crystals) they are called spars, some of which possess 
a '1 uble refraction, as observed by Sir Isaac Newton When thes< 
are jumbled together, or mixed with some colouring impurities, it is termed 
marble, if its texture be equable and firm ; if its texture be coarse and porous, 
yet hard, it is called lime-stone ; if its texture be very loose and porous, "is 
termed chalk. In some rocks the shells remain almost unchanged, and only 
covered, or bedded, with lime-stone, which seems to have been dissolved, and 
t>unk down amongst them. In others the softer shells and bonea are dissolved, 
and onl) shark's teeth, or harder echini, have preserved their form, envel ped 
in the chalk, or lime-stone. In some marbles the solution has been ( 
and no vestiges of shell appear, as In the white kind, caded statuary b) the 
workmen. See additional notes, No XVI. 

Ht I 101. Alluding to the celebrated Hercules of 



Canto II. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 47 

Still, as he leans, shall young Antinous please 

With careless grace, and unaffected ease ; 

O award, with loftier step, Apollo spring, 105 

And launch the unerring arrow from the string ; 

In Beauty's bashful form, the veil unfurl'd, 

Ideal Venus win the gazing world. 

Hence on Roubiliac's tomb shall Fame sublime 

Wave her triumphant wings, and conquer Time; 110 

Long with soft touch shall Damer's chissel charm, 

With grace delight us, and with beauty warm ; 

Foster's fine form shall hearts unborn engage, 

And Melbourn's smile enchant another age. 

V. " Gnomes! yon then taught transuding dews to pass 115 
Through time-falPn woods, and root-inwove morass, 
Age after age ; and with filtration fine 
Dispart, from earths and sulphurs, the saline. 

1. " Hence with diffusive Salt old Ocean steeps 
His emerald shallows, and his sapphire deeps. 120 

Glvco resting after his labours; and to the easy attitude of Antinous; the 
lofty step of the Apollo of Belvidere ; and the retreating modesty of the Ve- 
nus de Medici. Many of the designs of Roubiliac, in Westminster Abbey, 
are uncommonly poencal ; the allegory of Time and Fame contending for the 
trophy of General Wade, which is here alluded to, is beautifully tcld ; the 
wings of Fame are still expanded, and her hair still floating in the air ; which 
not only shows that she has that moment arrived, but also that her force is 
not yet expended ; at the same time that the old figure of Time, with his dis- 
ordered wings, is rather leaning backwards, and yielding to her impulse, and 
must apparently, in another instant, be driven from his attack upon the trophy. 

Foster's Jineforvz. 1. 113. Alluding to the beautiful statues of Lady Eliza- 
beth Foster, and of Lady Melbourn, executed by the Hon. Mrs. Damer. 

Root-imiove morass. I. 116. The great mass of matter which rests upon the 
lime-stone strata of the earth, or upon the granite, where the lime-stone stra- 
tum has been removed by earthquakes, or covered by lava, has had its origin 
from the recrements of vegetables and of air-breathing animals, as the lime- 
stone had its origin from sea animals. The whole habitable world was origi- 
nally covered with woods, till mankind formed themselves into societies, and 
subdued them by fire and by steel. Hence woods, in uncultivated countries, 
have grown and fallen through many ages, whence morasses of immense ex- 
tent ; and from these, as the more soluble parts were washed away first, were 
produced sea-salt, nitre, iron, and variety of acids, which, combining with 
calcareous matter, were productive of many fossil bodies, as flint, sea-sand, 
selenke, with the precious stones, and perhaps the diamond. See additional 
notes. No. XVII. 

Hence, with diffusive Salt. 1. 119. Salts of various kinds are produced from 

Part I. I 



48 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part L 

Oft in wide lakes, around their warmer brim, 
In hollow pyramids the crystals swim ; 
Or, fused by earth-born fires, in cubic blocks 
Shoot their white forms, and harden into rocks. 

" Thus, cavern'd round in Cracow's might}- mines, 125 
With < i ' stal w;uls a gorgeous city shines ; 
Scoop'd in the brim- rock long streets extend 
Their hoary course, and glittering domes ascend ; 
Down the bright steeps, emerging into day, 
Impetuous fountains burst their headlong way, 130 

O'er milk-white vales in ivorv channels spread, 
And wondering, seek their subterraneous bed. 



the recrements of animal and vegetable bod : es, such as phosphoric, ammo- 
niacal, marine salt, and others ; these are washed fr^m the earth by rains, 
and carried diwn our rivers into the sea ; they seem all here to decompose each 
other, except the marine salr, which has, theref ire, from the beginning of 
the habi'able world, been perpetually accumulating. 

There is a town in the immense salt-mines of Cracow, in Poland, with a 
market-place, a river, a church, and a famous s'atue (here supposed to be of 
Lot's wife), bv the rmist or dry appearance of which the subterranean inha- 
bitants are said to know when the weather is fair above ground. The galle- 
ries in these mines are so numerous and so intricate, that workmen have fre- 
quently lost their way, their lights having been burnt ou r , and have perished 
before they could be found. Essas, &c. par M. Macquart. And though 
the arches of these different stories of galleries are bolJlv executed, yet they 

ingerous, as they are held together, or supported, by large massesof 
timber of a foot square; and these vast timbers remain perfectly sound for 
many centuries, while all other pillars, whe her of brick, cement, or salt, 
soon dissolve, or moulder away. Ibid, Could the timbers over water-mill 
wheels or cellars be thus preserved, by occasionally soaking them with brine? 
These immense masses of rock-salt seem to have been produced by the evapo- 
ration of sea-water, in the early periods of the world, by subterranean tires. 
Dr Ilutton's Theory of the Earth. See also Theorie des Soura - 
par M Struve. Historie de Sciences de Lausanne, torn. ii. This idea of 
Dr. Hutton's is confirmed bv a fact mentioned in M Macquiirt's Essais sur 
Mmeralogie, who found a grea' quantity of fossil shells, principal!) 
and madre-pores, in the salt-m nes of VVialiczka. near Cracow. During 
the evaporation of the lakes of salt-water, as in artificial salt-works, the 
salt begins t.> crystallize near the edge, where the water is shallow. 
ing hollow inverted pyramids, which, when they become of a certain si/.e, 
subs <le bv their gravity ; il ill fu-.es, Or forms 

■ i; whence the silt shaped in hollow pyramids, called Hake-salt, 

tasted, and preserves flesh better, than the basket or powder nltt 

because it is mad< I the marine acid. 

. tut onr island contains tY >m about one twent) -eighth to one 

thirtieth part of i ,.dt. Sec 

dt> See note on Ocymum, vol. ii. of this work. 



Canto II. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 

Form'd in pellucid salt, with chissel nice, 

The pale lamp glimmering through the sculptured ice, 

With wild reverted eyes fair Lotta stands, 

And spreads to Heaven, in vain, her glassy hands ; 

Cold dews condense upon her pearly breast, 

And the big tear rolls lu:id down her vest. 

Far gleaming o'er the town transparent fanes 

Rear their white towers, and wave their golden vanes; 

Long lines of lustres pour their trembling rays, 

And the bright vault returns the mingled blaze. 

2. " Hence orient Nitre owes its sparkling birth, 
And with prismatic crystals gems the earth, 



Her.ce orient Nitre. I. 143 Nitre is found in Bengal naturally crystallized, 
and is swept by brooms from earths and stones, and thence called sweepings 
of nitre. It has lately been found, in large quantities, in a natural bason of 
calcareous earth at Molfetta, in Italy, both in thin stra-a between the calca- 
reous beds, and in efflorescences of various beautiful leafy and hairy forms. 
An account of this nitre-bed is given by Mr. Zimmerman, and abridged in 
Rozier*s Journal de Physique, Fevrier, 1790. This acid appears to be pro- 
duced in all situations where animal and vegetable matters are completely 
decomposed, and which are exposed to the action of the air, as on the walls 
of stables and slaughter-houses ; the cr) stals are prisms furrowed by longitudi- 
nal grooves. 

Dr Priestley discovered, that nitrous air or gas, which he obtained by dis- 
solving metals in nitrous acid, would combine rapidly with vital air, and 
produce with it a true nitrous acid, forming red clouds during the combina- 
tion ; the two airs occupy only the space before occupied by one of them, 
and, at the same time, heat is given out from the new combination. This 
diminution of the bulk of a mixture of nitrous gas and viral air, Dr. Priest- 
ley ingeniously used as a test of the purity of the latter ; a discovery of the 
greatest importance in the analysis of airs. 

Mr. Cavendish has since demonstrated, that two parts of vital air, or oxy- 
gene, and one part of phlogistic air, or azote, being Long exposed to electric 
shocKs, unite, and produce nitrous acid. Phil. Trans, vols. LXXV. and 
LXXVIII. 

Azote is one of the most abundant elements in nature, and, combined with 
calonque, or heat, it forms azotic gas, or phlogistic a r, and composes two 
thirds of the atmosphere ; and is one of the principal component pans of 
animal bodies, and, when united to vital air, or oxygene, produces the nitrous 
acid. Mr. Lavoisier found that 214 parts, by weight, of azote, and 434 
parts of oxygene, produced 64 parts of nitrous gas ; ar.d, by the further addi- 
tion of 36 parts of oxygene, nitrous acid was produced Traite de Chimie. 
When two airs become united so as to produce an uneiastic liquid, much calo- 
rique, or heat, is, of necessity, expelled from the new combination, though, 
perhaps, nitrous acid, and oxygenated marine acid, admit more heat into 
their combinations than other acids. 



50 BOTANIC GARDEN'. Part i. 

O'er tottering domes in filmv foliage crawls, 145 

Or frosts with branching plumes the mouldering walls. 

As woos Azotic Gas the virgin Air, 

And veils in crimson clouds the yielding Fair; 

Indignant Fire the treacherous courtship flies, 

Waves his light wing, and mingles with the skies. 150 

" So Beauty's Goddess, warm with new desire, 
Left, on her silver wheels, the God of Fire ; 
Her faithless charms to fiercer Mars resigned, 
Met with fond lips, with wanton arms intwined. 
— Indignant Vulcan eyed the parting Fair, 155 

And watch'd, with jealous step, the guilty pair; 
O'er his broad neck a wirv net he flung, 
Quick as he strode, the tinkling meshes rung ; 
Fine as the spider's flimsy thread he wove 
The immortal toil to lime illicit love ; 160 

Steel were the knots, and steel the twisted thong, 
Ring link'd in ring, indissolubly strong ; 
Oa viewless hooks, along the fretted roof, 
He hung, unseen, the inextricable woof. — 
— Quick start the springs, the webs pellucid spread, 165 

And lock the embracing Lovers on their bed ; 
Fierce with loud taunts vindictive Vulcan springs, 
Tries all the bolts, and tightens all the strings, 
Shakes, with incessant shouts, the bright abodes. 
Claps his rude hands, and calls the festive Gods. — 170 

— With spreading palms the alarmed Goddess tries 
To veil her beauties from celestial eves, 
Writhes her fair limbs, th.> slender ringlets strains, 
And bids her Loves untie the obdurate chains ; 
Soft swells her panting bosom, as she turns, 175 

And her flush'd cheek with brighter blushes burns. 
Majestic grief the Queen of Heaven avows, 
And chaste Minerva hides her helmed brows ; 
Attendant Nymphs, with bashful eyes askance. 

Steal of intangled Mars a transient glance; 180 

Surrounding Gods the circling nectar quaff, 
Ga/.e on the Fair, and envy as the} laugh. 



Canto II. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 51 

3. " Htnce dusky Iron sleeps in dark abodes, 
And ferny foliage nestles in the nodes ; 

Tdl with wide lungs the panting bellows blow, 1SJ 

And waked by fire the glittering torrents flow ; 
— Quick whirls the wheel, the ponderous hammer falls, 
Loud anvils ring amid the trembling walls, 
Strokes follow strokes, the sparkling ingot shines, 
Flows the red slag, the lengthening bar refines ; 190 

Cold waves, immersed, the glowing mass congeal, 
And turn to adamant the hissing Steel. 

Hence dusky Iron. 1. 183- The production of iron from the decomposition 
cf vegetable bodies, is perpetually presented ,o our v ew ; the waters oozing 
from all morasses are chalybeate, and deposit their ochre on being exposed to 
the air, the iron acquiring a caiciform state from its union with ox/gene, or 
vital air. When thin morasses lie on beds of gravel, the latter are generally 
stained by the nitration of some of the chalybeate water through them. 
This formation of iron from vegetable recrements is further evinced by the 
fern leaves, and other parts of vegetables, so frequently found in the centre 
of the knobs or nodules of some iron ores. 

In some of these nodules there is a nucleus of whiter iron-earth, surrounded 
by many concentric strata of darker and lighter iron-earth alternately. In 
one, which now lies before me, the nucleus is a prism of a triangular form, 
with blunted angles, and about half an inch high, and an inch and half broad ; 
on every side of this are concentric strata of similar iron-earth, alternately- 
browner and less brown ; each stratum is about a tenth of an inch in thick- 
ness, and there are ten of them in number. To what known cause can 
this exactly regular distribution of so many earthy strata of diiierent co- 
lours, surrounding the nucleus, be ascribed? I dont know that any mine- 
ralogists have attempted an explanation of this wonderful phenomenon. 

1 suspect it is owing to the polarity of the central nucleus. If iron-filings 
be regularly laid on paper, by means of a small sieve, and a magnet be 
placed underneath, the tilings will dispose themselves in concentric curves, 
with vacant intervals between them. Now, it these iron-tilings are con- 
ceived to be suspended in a fluid, whose specific gravity is similar to their 
own, and a magnetic bar was introduced as an axis into this fluid, it is 
easy to foresee that the iron-filings would dispose themselves in.o concen- 
tric spheres, with intervals of the circumnatant flu.d between them, ex- 
actly as is seen in these nodules of iron-earth. As all the lavas consist of 
one fourth of iron, (Kirwan's Mineral ) and almost all other known bodies, 
whether of animal or vegetable origin, possess more or less of this property, 
may not the distribution of a great portion of the globe of the earth, into 
Straia of greater or less regularity, be owing to the polarity of the whole ? 

And turn to adamant. 1. 192. The Circumstances which render iron more 
valuable to mankind than any other metal, are, 1 Its property of being 
rendered hard to so great a degree, and thus constituting such excellent 
tools. It was the discovery of th.s property of iron, Mr. L. >cke thinks, iliat 
gave such pre-eminence to the European world over the American one. 

2 Its power of being welded ; that is, when two pieces are made very hot, 
and applied together by hammering, they unite completely, unless any scale 
of iron intervenes; and, to prevent this it is usual for smiths to dip the very 
hot bar in sand, a little of which fuses into fluid glass with the scale, and 



5* BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

" Last Michel's hands, with tf)ii< li of potent charm, 
The polish'd rods with powers magnetic arm; 
With points directed to the polar stars, 195 

In one long line extend the tempered bars; 

is squeezed out from between the uniting parts by the force of hammering. 
S. Irs power <>t" acquiring magne'.ism. 

It is, however, to be wished, that gold or silver were discovered in as 
great quantity as iron, since these metals, being indestruct bit- by expire to 
air, water, tire, or any comm. n acids, would supply wholesome vessels for 
cookery, so much to be desired, and so di.hculi to ob am, and would form 
the most light and durable coverings for houses, as well as indestructible i.re- 
grates, ovens, and boiling vessels. See additional notes, No XVIII. oh 
Steel. 

Last Michel's bands. 1. 193. The discovery of the magnet seems to have 
been in very early times; it is mentioned by Plato, Lucretius, Pliny, and 
Galen, and is said to have taken its name of magnes, from Magnesia, a sea- 
port of ancient Lybia. 

As even piece of iron which was made magnetical by the touch of a mag- 
net became itself a magnet, many attempts were made to improve these 
artificial magnets, bu _ without much success, till Servingdon Saver] , Lsq. 
made them of hardened steel bars, which were so powerful, that one of them, 
weighing three pounds averdupois, would lift another of the same weight. 
Phil. Trans. 

After this Dr. Knight made very successful experiments on this subject, 
■which, though be kept his method secret, seems to have excited others to 
turn their atention to magnetism. At th s time the Rev. Mr. Michel in- 
vented an equally efficacious and more expeditious way of making strong ar- 
tificial magnets, which he published in the end of the year 1750, in which 
he explained his method of what he called " the double touch," and which, 
since Dr Knight's method has been known, appears to be somewhat diiicr- 
ent from it. 

This method of rendering bars of hardened steel magnetical, consists in 
holding vert cally two or more magnetic bars nearly parallel to each other, 
■with their opposite poles verj near each other (bui nevertheless separated to 
a small distance), these are :o be slided over a line of bars, laid horizontally, 
a few times backward and Forward. See Michel on Magnetism, also a de- 
tailed account in Chambers' Dictionary. 

What Mr. Michel proposed by this method was, to include a werj small 
portion of the horizontal bars intended to be made magnetical, between the 
joint forces of two or more bars already magnetical, and, by sliding ihem, 
from end to end, every part of the line of bars became successively included, 
and thus bars, possessed of a verj small degree of magnetism to begin with, 
would, in a few times sliding backwards and forwards, make the other ones 
much more magneiical than themselves, which are then to be taken up 
and used to touch the former, which arc in succession to be laid down hori- 
zon' ally in a line. 

'1 lure is still a ^rea' field remains for future discoveries in magnetism, both 
in respec to experiment and theory ; the latter consists of vague conjectures, 
the more probable of which are, perhaps, those of Epinus, as the) assimilate 
ii to < lectricity. 

One conjecture 1 shall add, viz. that the polarity of magnetism may Ik 

>'. rotati i . mo ion If heat, electricity ami magnetism are 

■opposed to be huids of difterent gravities, heat being the heaviest of them, 



Canto II. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 

Then thrice and thrice with steady eye he guides, 
And o'er the adhesive train the magnet slides ; 
The obedient Steel with living instinct moves, 
And veers for ever to the pole it loves. 

" Hail, adamantine Steel ! magnetic Lord! 
King of the prow, the plowshare, and the sword ! 
True to the pole, bv thee the pilot guides 
His steadv helm amid the struggling tides, 
Braves with broad sail the immeasurable sea, 
Cleaves the dark air, and asks no star but thee. — 
Bv thee the plowshare rends the matted plain, 
Inhumes in level rows the living grain ; 
Intrusive forests quit the cultured ground, 
And Ceres laughs with golden fillets crown'd. — . 
O'er restless realms when scowling Discord flings 
Her snakes, and loud the din of battle rings ; 
Expiring Strength, and vanquish'd Courage feel 
Thy arm resistless, adamantine Steel! 

4. " Hence in fine streams diffusive Acids flow, 
Or wing'd with fire o'er Earth's fair bosom blow; 



electricity the next heavy, and magnetism the lightest, it is evident, that by 
the quick revolution of the earth, the heat will be accumulated most over the 
line, electricity next beneath this, and that the magnetism will be detruded 
to the poles and axis of the earth, like the atmospheres of common air and 
of inflammable gas, as explained in the note on Canto I. 1. 123. 

Electricity and heat will both of them displace magnetism, and this shows 
that they may gravitate on each other ; and hence, when too great a quantity 
of the electric fluid becomes accumulated at the poles by descending snows, 
or other unknown causes, it may have a tendency to rise towards the tropics 
by its centrifugal force, and produce the northern lights. See additional 
notes, No I. 

Diffusive Art -Is flow. 1 215. The production of marine acid from decompos- 
ing; vegetable and animal matters, with vi'al air, and of nitrous acid from azote 
and vital air, the former of which is unred to its basis by means of the exha- 
lations from vegetable and animal makers, constitute an analogy which in- 
duces us to beheve '"hat many other acids have either their bases, or are unit- 
ed to vital air by means of some part of decomposing vegetable and animal 
matters. 

The great quantities of flint-sand, whether formed in mountains or in the 
sea, would appear to derive its acid from the new world, as it is found above 
the strata of lime-stone and granite which constitute the old world, and, as 
the earthy basis of flint is probable calcareous, a great part of it seems to be 
produced by a conjunction of the new and old world. The recrements of 



M BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

Transmute to glittering Flints her chalky lands, 

Or sink on Ocean's bed in count! ss Sands. 

II :nce Bilvery Selenite her crystal moulds, 

And soft Asbestus smooths his silky folds; 220 

His cubic forms phosphoric Fluor prints, 

Or rays in spheres his amethystine tints. 

Soft cobweb clouds transparent Onyx spreads, 

And playful Agates weave their colour'd threads; 

Gay pictured Mochoes glow with landscape-dyes, 225 

And changeful Opals roll their lucid eyes ; 

Blue lambent light around the S ipphire plays, 

Bright Rubies blush, and living Diamonds blaze. 

" Thus, for attractive earth, inconstant Jove, 
Mask'd in new shapes, forsook his realms above.— 230 

air-breathing animals and vegetables probably afford the acid, and the shells 
of marine animals the earthy basis, while another part may have derived its 
calcareous part also from the decomposition of vegetable and animal bodies. 

The same mode of reasoning seems applicable to the siliceous stones under 
various names, as amethyst, onyx, agate, muchoe, opal, &.c. which do not 
seem to have undergone any process from volcanic Hies, and as these stones 
only differ from Hint by a greater or less admixture of argillaceous and calca- 
reous earns. The different proportions of which, in each kind of stone, 
may be seen in Mr Kirwan's valuable Elements of Mineralogy. See addi- 
tional notes, No. XIX. 

Living Diamonds blaze. 1 228. Sir Isaac Newton having observed the 
gnat power of refracting light, which the diamond possesses above all other 
crystallized or vitreous matter, conjectured that it was an inflammable body 
in some manner conge. ded. Insomuch that all the light is redected which 
falls on any of its inter or surfaces at a greater angle of incidents than 24{- 
degrees ; whereas an artificial gem of glass does not reflect an) light from its 
hinder surface, unless that surface is inclined in an angle of -11 degrees. Hence 
the diamond reflects half as much more light as a factitious gem in similar cir- 
cumstances ; to which mUSI beaddediisgre.it transparency, and the excellent 
polish it is capable of. The diamond had, nevertheless, been placed at the 
head of crystals or precious stones by the mineralogis-s, till Bergman ranged 
it of late in the combustible class of bodies, because, by the focus of Villette's 
burning mirror, it was evaporated by a heat not much greater than will melt 
silver, and gave out light. Air 11 epfner, however, thinks the dispersion of 
the diamond by this great heal should be called a phosphorescent evaporation 
of it, rather than a combustion; and from its other analogies of crystal* 
hardness, transparency, and place of its nativity, wishes again to 
replace it amongsi the precious stones. Observ. sur la Physique, | 
torn. xxxv. \>. lid. Sec new edition of the Translation of Cronstcdt, b) 
l)e Costa. 

Inconstant y t ,vc. I. 229. The purer air, or ether, in the ancient mvtho- 

represented by Jupiter, and the infen t air b) Juno; and the 

Conjunction of the:; deities was said to produce the vernal showers, and pro- 



Canto II. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. $*■ 

First her sweet eyes his Eagle-form beguiles, 

And Hebe feeds him with ambrosial smiles ; 

Next the changed God a Cygnet's down assumes, 

And playful Leda smooths his glossy plumes ; 

Then glides a silver serpent, treacherous guest ! 23$ 

And fair Olympia folds him in her breast; 

Now lows a milk-white Bull on Afric's strand, 

And crops with dancing head the daisied land. — 

With rosy wreathes Europa's hand adorns 

His fringed forehead, and his pearly horns ; 240 

Light on his back die sportive Damsel boimds, 

And pleased he moves along the flower}' grounds ; 

Bears with slow step his beauteous prize aloof, 

Dips in the lucid flood his ivory hoof; 

Then wets his velvet knees, and wading laves 24$ 

His silky sides amid the dimpling waves. 

While her fond train with beckoning hands deplore, 

Strain their blue eyes, and shriek along the shore ; 

Beneath her robe she draws her snowy feet, 

And, half-reclining on her ermine seat, 250 

Round his raised neck her radiant arms she throws, 

And rests her fair cheek on his curled brows ; 

Her yellow tresses wave on wanton gales, 

And bent in air her azure mantle sails. 

— Onward he moves, applauding Cupids guide, 255: 

And skim on shooting wing the shining tide ; 

Emerging Tritons leave their coral caves, 

Sound their loud conchs, and smooth the circling waves, 

Surround the timorous Beauty, as she swims, 

And gaze enamour'd on her silver limbs. 26Q 

Now Europe's shadowy shores, with loud acclaim, 

Hail the fair fugitive, and shout her name ; 



create all things, as is further spoken of in Canto III. 1. 204. It is now di&« 
covered, that pure air, or oxygene, uniting with variety of bases, forms the 
various kinds of acids ; as the vitriolic acid from pure air and sulphur ; the 
nitrous acid from pure air and phlogistic air, or azote ; and carbonic acid 
(or fixed air), from pure air and charcoal. Some of these affinities were, 
perhaps, portrayed by the Magi of Egypt, who were probably learned in 
chemistry, in their hieroglyphic pictures before the invention of letters, by 
the loves of Jupiter with terrestrial ladies. And thus, physically as well as 
metaphysically, might be said, •' Jovis omnia plena." 

Part I. K 



j6 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

Soft echoes wari)le, wispcring forests nod, 

And conscious Nature owns the present God. 

Changed from the Bull the rapturous God assumes 26* 

Immortal youth, with glow celestial hlooms, 

With L-nient words her virgin fears disarms, 

And clasps the yielding Beauty in his arms ; 

Whence Kings and Heroes own illustrious hirth, 

Guards of" munkind, and demigods on earth. 270 

VI. " Gnomes ! as vou pass'd beneath the labouring soil, 
The guards and guides of Nature's chemic toil, 
Ton saw, deep-sepulchred in dusky realms, 
Which Earth's rock-ribbed ponderous vault o'crwhelms, 
With self-born fires the mass fermenting glow, 275 

And flame-wing' d sulphurs quit the earths below. 

1. " Hence ductile Clays in wide expansion spread, 
Soft as the Cygnet's down, their snow-white bed ; 
With yielding flakes successive forms reveal, 
And change obedient to the whirling wheel. 280 

First China's sons, with early art elate, 
Form'd the gay tea-pot, and the pictured plate j 
Saw with illumined brow and dazzled eyes 
In the red stove vitrescent colours rise ; 

Speck'd her tall beakers with enamel'd stars, 285 

Her monster-josses, and gigantic jars ; 
Smear'd her huge dragons with metallic hues, 
With golden purples, and cobaltic blues ; 

With self -bum Jires . 1.275. After the accumulation of plains and moun- 
tains on The calcareous rocks, or granite, which had been previou 
by volcanic rires, a second set of volcanic fires were produced by the fermen- 
tation of this new mass, which, after the salts, or acids, and iron, had been 
washed away in part by elutriation, dissipated the sulphurous parts, which 
uric insoluble in water; win nee argillaceous and siliceous earths were hit in 
some place;,; in others, bitumen became sublimed to the upper pait ot the 
stratum, producing coals of various degrees of purity. 

Hence ductile Clays. 1.277. See additii N >. XX. 

b illumined bran. 1.283, No colour is distinguishable in the red- 
hot kiln but the red itself, till tlie workman introduces a small p 
wood, which, In producing a white flame, renders all the other colours visi- 
ble in a moment. 

With golden purple*. 1. 288. See additional notes, No, XXI 



Canto II. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. S7 

Bade on wide hills her porcelain castles glare, 

And glazed Pagodas tremble in the air. 290 

" Etruria ! next beneath thy magic hands 
Glides the quick wheel, the plastic clay expands, 
Nerved with fine touch, thy fingers (as it turns) 
Mark the nice bounds of vases, ewers, and urns ; 
-Round each fair form in lines immortal trace 295 

Uncopied Beauty, and ideal Grace. 

" Gnomes ! as you now dissect with hammers fine 
The granite-rock, the nodul'd flint calcine ; 
Grind with strong arm, the circling chertz betwixt, 
Your pure Ka-o-lins and Pe-tun-tses mixt ; 300 

O'er each red saggar's burning cave preside, 
The keen-eyed Fire-Nymphs blazing by your side ; 
And pleased on Wedgwood ray your partial smile, 
A new Etruria decks Britannia's isle. — r- 

Charm'd by your touch, the flint liquescent pours 305 

Through finer sieves, and falls in whiter showers ; 
Charm'd by your touch, the kneaded clay refines, 
The biscuit hardens, the enamel shines ; 
Each nicer mould a softer feature drinks, 
The bold Cameo speaks, the soft Intaglio thinks. 310 



Etruria ! next. 1. 291. Etruria may, perhape, vie with China itself in the 
antiquity of its arts. The times of its greatest splendour were prior to the 
foundation of Rome, and the reign of one of its best princes, Janus, was 
the oldest epoch the Romans knew. The earliest historians speak of the 
Etruscans as being then of high antiquity, most probably a colony from Phoe- 
nicia, to which a Pelasgian colony acceded, and was united soon after Deuca- 
lion's flood. The peculiar character of their earthen vases consists in the admi- 
rable beauty, simplicity, and diversity of forms, which continue the best mo- 
dels of taste to the artists of the present times ; and in a species of non-vitre- 
ous encaustic painting, which was reckoned, even in the time of Pliny, among 
the lost arts of antiquity, but which has lately been recovered by the ingenuity 
and industry of Mr. Wedgwood. It is supposed that the principal manufac- 
tories were about Nola, at the foot of Vesuvius, for it is in that neighbour- 
hood that the greatest quantities of antique vases have been found; and it is 
said that the general taste of the inhabitants is apparently influenced by them, 
insomuch that strangers, coming to Naples, are commonly struck with the 
diversity and elegance even of the most ordinary vases for common uses. 
See D'Hancarville's preliminary discourses to the magniiicent collection of 
Etruscan vases, published by Sir William Hamilton. 



ft BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I- 

" To call the pearly drops from Pity\ 
Or stay Despair's disanimating sigh, 
Whether, Friend of Ait! the gem you mould 
Rich with new taste, with ancient virtue hold ; 
Form the poor fetter'd Slave, on hended knee, 31 JT 

From Britain's sons imploring to he flee ; 
Or with fair Hope the brightening scenes improve, 
And cheer the dreary wastes at Sydney-Cove ; 
Or bid Mortality rejoice and mourn 
O'er the fine forms on Portland's mystic urn. — 320 

'* Here, by fall'n columns and disjoin'd arcades, 
On mouldering stones, beneath deciduous shades, 
Sits Humankind in hieroglyphic state, 
Serious, and pondering on their changeful fate : 
While with inverted torch, and swimming eyes, 325 

Sinks the fair shade of Mortal life, and dies. 
There the pale Ghost through Death's wide portal bends 
His timid feet, the dusky steep descends ; 
With smiles assuasive Love Divi/w invites, 
Guides on broad wing, with torch uplifted lights ; 330 

Immortal Life, her hand extending, courts 
The lingering form, his tottering step supports ; 
Leads on to Pluto's realms the dreary wav, 
And gives him trembling to Elvsian day. 

Beneath, in sacred robes the Priestess dress'd, 335 

The coif close-hooded, and the fluttering vest, 
With pointing finger guides the initiate youth, 
Unweaves the many-colour'd veil of Truth, 
Drives the profane from Mystery's bolted door, 
And Silence guards the Eleusinian lore. — 340 

Form the poor fetter" d Slave. I. 315. Alluding to two cameos of Mr. 
Wedgwood's manufacture; one of a slave in chains, of which he distributed 
many hundreds, to excite the humane to attend to, and to assist in the aboli- 
tion of the detestable traffic in human creatures; and the other a cameo of 
Hope attended by Peace, and Art, and Labour; which was nude ot clay 
from Botany-Hay ; to which place he sent many of them, to show the inha- 
bitants what their materials would do, and to encourage their industry. A 
print of this latter medallion is prefixed to Mi. StOckdale*B edition of Philips' 
Expedition to Botany-Bay, with some verses which are inserted at the end 
of the additional notes. 

Portland'* vijstic urn. 1. 320. Sec additional notes, No. XXII. 




«ia? /rem CtyBt.IVUU,/,; } 




Canto II. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 59 

" Whether, O Friend of Art ! your gems derive 
Fine forms from Greece, and fabled Gods revive ; 
Or bid from modern life the Portrait breathe, 
And bind round Honour's brow the laurel wreath ; 
Buovant shall sail, with Fame's historic page, 345 

Each fair medallion o'er the wrecks of age ; 
Nor Time shall mar ; nor Steel, nor Fire, nor Rust 
Touch the hard polish of the immortal bust. 

2. " Hence sable Coal his massy couch extends, 
And stars of gold the sparkling Pyrite blends ; 350 

Hence dull-eyed Naphtha pours his pitchy streams, 
And Jet uncolour'd drinks the solar beams, 
Bright Amber shines on his electric throne, 
And adds ethereal lustres to his own. 

—Led by the phosphor-light, with daring tread 3-55 

Immortal Franklin sought the fiery bed ; 
Where, nursed in night, incumbent Tempest shrouds 
His embryon Thunders in circumfluent clouds, 
Besieged with iron points their airy cell, 
And pierced the monsters slumbering in the shell. 360 

" So, borne on sounding pinions to the West, 
When Tyrant-Power had built his eagle nest ; 

Fine forms from Greece. 1. 342- In real stones, or in paste or soft coloured 
glass, many pieces of exquisite workmanship were produced by the ancients. 
Basso-relievos of various sizes were made in coarse brown earth of one 
colour ; but of the improved kind of two or more colours, and of a true por- 
celain texture, none were made by the ancients, nor attempted I believe by 
the moderns, before those of Mr. Wedgwood's manufactory. 

Hence sable Coal. 1. 349. See additional notes, No. XXIII. on coal. 

Bright Amber shines. 1. 353. Coal has probably all been sublimed more 
or less from the clay, with which it was at first formed in decomposing mo- 
rasses ; the petroleum seems to have been separated, and condensed again in 
superior strata, and a still finer kind of oil, as naphtha, has probably had the 
same origin. Some of these liquid oils have again lost their more volatile 
parts, and become cannel-coal, asphaltum, jet, and amber, according to the 
purity of the original fossil oil. Dr. Priestley has shown, that essential oils, 
long exposed to the atmosphere, absorb both the vital and phlogistic part of 
it ; whence, it is probable, their becoming solid may in great measure depend, 
as well as by the exhalation of their more volatile parts. On distillation with 
volatile alcali all these fossil oils are shown to contain the acid of amber, 
which evinces the identity of their origin. If a piece of amber be rubbed, it 
attracts straws and hairs; whence the discovery of electricity, and whence 
its name, from electron, the Greek word for amber. 

Immortal Franilin. 1. 356. See note on Canto 1. 1. 383. 



t30 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

While bom hifl eyry shriek'd the famish'd brood, 

Clench'd their Bharp claws, and champ' d their beaks for blood, 

Immortal Franklin watch'd the callow crew, 365 

And stabb'd the struggling Vampires ere thev flew. 

—The patriot-flame with quick contagion ran, 

Hill lighted hill, and man electrised man ; 

Her heroes slain, awhile Columbia mourn'd, 

And, crown'd with laurels, Liberty rcturn'd. 370 

" The Warrior, Liberty, with bending sails, 
Helm'd his bold course to fair Hiberxia's vales; — . 
Firm as he steps along the shouting lands, 
Lo! Truth and Virtue range their radiant bands ; 
Sad Superstition wails her empire torn, 375 

Art plies his oar, and Commerce pours her horn. 

" Long had the Giant-form, on Gallia's plains 
Inglorious slept, unconscious of his chains ; 
Round his large limbs were wound a thousand strings 
Bv the weak hands of Confessors and Kings; 380 

O'er his closed eyes a triple veil was bound, 
And steely rivets lock'd him to the ground; 
While stem Bastile with iron cage inthralls 
His folded limbs, and hems in marble walls, 
— Touch'd by the patriot-flame, he rent, amazed, 385 

The flimsy bonds, and round and round him gazed; 
Starts up from earth, above the admiring throng 
Lifts his Colossal form, and towers along; 
High o'er his foes his hundred arms he rears, 
Plowshares his swords, and pruning-books his spears ; 390 



While stern Bastile. I. 383. " We descended with great difficulty into the 
dungeons, which were made too low tor our standing upright; and wen- so 
dark, that we were obliged at noon-day to visit them b) the light of ■ can- 
dle. We saw the hooks of those chains by which the prisoners \\ ere fastened 
bj their necks to the walls of their cells; many ot* which, being below the 
level of the water, were in a constant state of humidity, from which issued 
vapour, which more than once extinguished the candles. Since 
k ion oi tin building, man) subterraneous cells have been disco- 
vend under a piece of ground, which seemed onl) a bank of Bolid earth 
Ik i re the horrid secrets of this prison-house were disclosed. Some skclc- 
tons were found in these recesses, with irons still fastened to their decayed 
Letters horn Trance, by li. M. Williams, p. 24. 



Canto II. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. Gi 

Calls to the Good and Brave with voice, that rolls 
Like heaven's own thunder round the echoing poles ; 
Gives to the winds his banner broad unfurl'd, 
And gathers in its shade the living world. 

VII. " Gnomes! you then taught volcanic airs to force 395 
Through bubbling Lavas their resistless course, 
O'er the broad walls of rifted Granite climb, 
And pierce the rent roof of incumbent Lime ; 

And pierce the rent roof 1. 398. The granite rocks and the lime-stone rocks 
have been cracked to very great depths at the time they were raised up by 
sub'erranean tires: in these cracks are found most of the metallic ores, except 
iron, and perhaps manganese ; the former of which is generally found in 
horizontal strata, and the latter generally near the surface of the earth. 

Philosophers possessing so convenient a test for the discovery of iron by 
the magnet, have long since found it in all vegetable and animal matters ; 
and of late Mr. Scheele has discovered the existence of manganese in vege- 
table ashes. Scheele, 56 mem. Stock. 1774. Kirwan. Min. 353. Which 
accounts for the production of it near the surface of the earth, and thence for 
its calciform appearance, or union with vital air. Bergman has likewise shown, 
that the lime-stones which become bluish, or dark coloured, when calcined, 
possess a mixture of manganese, and are thence preferable, as a cement, to 
other kinds of lime. 2 Bergman, 229. Which impregnation with manga- 
nese has probably been received from the decomposition of superincumbent 
vegetable matters. 

These cracks, or perpendicular caverns, in the granite or lime-stone, pass 
to unknown depths ; and it is up these channels that I have endeavoured to 
show, that the steam rises, which becomes afterwards condensed, and pro- 
duces the warm springs of this island, and other parts of the world. (See 
note on Fucus, vol. ii). And up these cracks I suppose certain vapours arise, 
which either alone, or by meeting with something descending into them 
from above, have produced most of the metals, and several of the materials 
in which they are bedded. Thus the ponderous earth, Barytes, of Derby- 
shire, is found in these cracks, and is stratified frequently with lead-ore, and 
frequently surrounds it. This ponderous earth has been found by Dr. 
Hoepfner in a granite in Switzerland, and may have thus been sublimed 
from immense depths by great heat, and have obtained its carbonic or vitri- 
olic acid from above. Annales de Chimie. There is also reason to conclude, 
that something from above is necessary to the formation of many of the 
metals. At Hawkstone, in Shropshire, the seat of Sir Richard Hill, there 
is an elevated rock of siliceous sand, which is coloured green with copper in 
many places high in the air ; and I have in my possession a specimen of lead 
formed in the cavity of an iron nodule, and another of lead amid spar from 
a crack of a coal-stratum ; all which countenance the modern production of 
those metals from descending materials. To which should be added, that the 
highest mountains of granite, which have, therefore, probably never been 
covered with marine productions, on account of their early elevation, nor 
with vegetable or animal matters, on account of their great coldness, contain 
)io metallic ores, whilst the lower ones contain copper and tin in their cracks 
or veins, both in Saxony, Silesia, and Cornwall. Kirwan's Mineral, p. 374. 

The transmutation of one metal into another, though hitherto undisco- 



02 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

Round sparry caves metallic lustres fling, 

And bear Phlogiston on their tepid wing. 400 

u Hence glow, refulgent Tin! thy crystal grains, 
And tawny Copper shoots her azure veins; 
Zinc lines his fretted vault widi sable ore, 
And dull Galena tessellates the floor, 

On vermil beds in Idria's might}' caves 40f 

The living Silver rolls its ponderous waves; 
With gav refractions bright Platina shines, 
And studs with squander'd stars his dusky mines; 
Long threads of netted gold, and silvery darts, 
Inlay the Lazuli, and pierce the Quartz ; — 410 

— Whence roof 'd with silver beam'd Peru, of old, 
And hapless Mexico was paved with gold. 

" Heavens! on my sight what sanguine colours blaze! 
Spain's deathless shame! the crimes of modern days! 
When Avarice, shrouded in Religion's robe, 415 

Sail'd to the West, and slaughter'd half the globe ; 
While Superstition, stalking by his side, 
Mock'd the loud groan, and lap'd the bloody tide ; 
For sacred truths announced her frenzied dreams, 
And tum'd to night the sun's meridian beams. — 420 

Hear, oh Britannia! potent Queen of isles, 
On whom fair Art, and meek Religion smiles, 
Now Afric's coasts thy craftier sons invade, 
And Theft and Murder take the garb of Trade ! 
— The Slave, in chains, on supplicating knee, 425 

Spreads his wide arms, and lifts his eyes to thee ; 



vered by the alchymists, does not appear impossible ; such tninsmutatioiu 
have been supposed to exist in nature ; thus lapis calaminaris may have been 
produced from the destruction of lead-ore, as it is generally found on the 
top of the veins of lead, where it has been calcined, or united with air, and 
because masses of lead-ore are often found entirely enclosed in it. So silvei 
i:. found mixed in almost all lead-ores, and sometimes in separate filaments 
within the cavities of lead-ore, as I am informed by Mr. Michel, and i», 
thence probably a partial transmutation of the kail to silver; the rapid piv- 
grej "i modern chemistry having shown the analogy between metallic cnl 
cca and acids, may lead to the power of transmuting their l. 
mud) io be wished 



Canto II. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 63 

With hunger pale, with wounds and toil oppress'd, 

* Are we not Brethren ? sorrow choaks the rest ; 

— Air ! bear to heaven upon thy azure flood 

Their innocent cries I— 'Earth ! cover not their blood ! 430 

VIII. " When Heaven's dread justice smites in crimes 
o'ergrown 
The blood-nursed Tyrant on his purple throne, 
Gnomes', your bold forms unnumber'd arms outstretch, 
And urge the vengeance o'er the guilty wretch. — 
Thus when Cambyses led his barbarous hosts 435 

From Persia's rocks to Egypt's trembling coasts, 
Defiled each hallowed fane, and sacred wood, 
And, drunk with fury, swell'd the Nile with blood j 
Waved his proud banner o'er the Theban states, 
And pour'd destruction through her hundred gates; 440 

In dread divisions march'd the marshal'd bands, 
And swarming armies blacken'd all the lands, 
By Memphis these to Ethiop's sultry plains, 
And those to Hammon's sand-encircled fanes.— 
Slow as they pass'd the indignant temples frown'd, 445 

Low curses muttering from the vaulted ground ; 
Long aisles of Cypress waved their deepen'd glooms, 
And quivering spectres grinn'd amid the tombs j 
Prophetic whispers breathed from Sphinx's tongue, 
And Memnon's lyre with hollow murmurs rung ; 450 

Burst from each pyramid expiring groans, 
And darker shadows stretch'd their lengthen'd cones. 

Thus when Cambyses. 1. 435. Cambyses marched one army from Thebes, 
after having overturned the temples, ravaged the country, and deluged it 
with blood, to subdue Ethiopia: tnis army almost perished by famine, inso- 
much, that they repeatedly slew every tenth man to supply the remainder 
•with food. He sent another army to plunder the temple of Jupiter Amraon, 
which perished, overwhelmed with sand. 

Expiring groans. 1. 451. Mr. Savery, or Mr. Volney, in his travels through 
Egypt, has given a curious description of one of the pyramids, with the 
operose method of closing them, and immuring the body (as they supposed) 
for six thousand years; and has endeavoured from thence to show, that 
when a monarch died, several of his favourite courtiers were enclosed alive 
with che mummy in these great masses of stone-work, and had food and 
water conveyed to them, as long as they lived, proper apertures being left for 
this purpose, and for the admission of air, and for the exclusion of any thing 
Offensive. 

Part I. L 



m BOTANIC GARDEN'. Part 1, 

Day utter day their deathful rout they steer, 
Lust in the van, and Rapine in the rear. 

u Gnomes/ as they march'd, you hid the gather'd fruits, 
The bladed grass, sweet grains, and mealy roots ; 456 

Scared the tired quails, that journey'd o T er their heads, 
Retain'd the locusts in their earthy beds ; 
Bade on vour sands no night-born dews distil, 
Stav'd with vindictive hands the scanty rill. — i 460 

Loud o'er the camp the fiend of famine shrieks, 
Ctlls all her brood, and champs her hundred beaks ; 
O'er ten square leagues her pennons broad expand, 
And twilight swims upon the shuddering sand ; 
Perch'd on her crest the Griffin Discord clings, 465 

And Giant Murder rides between her wings ; 
Blood from each clotted hair, and horny quill, 
And showers of tears in blended streams distil ; 
High poised in air her spiry neck she bends, 
Rolls her keen eve, her dragon claws extends, 470 

Darts from above, and tears at each fell swoop 
With iron fangs the decimated troop. 

" Now o'er their heads the whizzing whirlwinds breathe, 
And the live desert pants and heaves beneath j 
Tinged by the crimson sun, vast columns rise 475 

Of eddying sands, and war amid the skies^ 
In red arcades the billowv plain surround, 
And whirling turrets stalk along the ground. 

And whirling turrets. 1. 478. " At one o'clock we alighted among some 
acacia trees, at Waadi el Halboub, having gone twenty-one miles. W e W at 
here at once surprised and terrified by a sight surely one of the most magni- 
ficent in the world. In that vast expanse of desert, from VV. to N. W. of 
us, we saw a number of prodigious pillars of sand, at different distances, at 
times moving with great celerity, at others stalking on with a majestic slow- 
ness; at intervals we thought they were coming in a very few minutes to 
overwhelm us; and small quantities of sand did actually more than once reach 
us. Again they would retreat so as to be almost out of sight, their tops 
reaching to the very clouds. There the tops often separated from the bodies; 
and these, once disjoined, dispersed in the air, and did not appear more. 
Sometimes thej were broken in the middle, as if struck with large cannon 
shot. About noon they began to advance with considerable swiftness upon 
ns, the wind being very strong ar north. Eleven of them ranged along side 
of us about the distance of three miles. The greatest diameter of the largest 



Canto II. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 65 

»— Long ranks in vain their shining blades extend. 

To Demon-Gods their knees unhallow'd bend, 480 

Wheel in wide circle, form in hollow square, 

And now they front, and now they fly the war, 

Pierce the deaf tempest with lamenting cries, 

Press their parch'd lips, and close their blood-shot eyes. 

— Gnomes I o'er the waste you led vour myriad powers, 485 

Climb'd on the whirls, and aim'd the flinty showers! — 

Onward resistless rolls the infuriate surge, 

Clouds follow clouds, and mountains mountains urge ; 

Wave over wave the driving desert swims, 

Bursts o'er their heads, inhumes their struggling limbs; 490 

Man mounts on man, on camels camels rush, 

Hosts march o'er hosts, and nations nations crush,— 

Wheeling in air the winged islands fall, 

And one great earthy ocean covers all ! — 

Then ceased the storm, — <Night bow'd his Ethiop brow 495 

To earth, and listen'd to the groans below, — 

Grim Horror shook, — awhile the living hill 

Heaved with convulsive throes, — and all was still ! 

IX» " Gnomes! whose fine forms, impassive as the air, 
Shrink with soft sympathy for human care ; 500 

appeared to me, at that distance, as if it would measure ten feet. They 
retired from us with a wind at S. E. leaving an impression upon my mind to> 
which I can give no name, though surely one ingredient in it was fear, with 
a considerable deal of wonder and astonishment. It was in vain to think 
of flying ; the swiftest horse, or fastest sailing ship, could be of no use to carry 
iis out of this danger ; and the full persuasion of this rivetted me as if to the 
spot where I stood. 

" The same appearance of moving pillars of sand presented themselves to 
us this day in form and disposition like those we had seen at Waadi el Hal- 
boub, only they seemed to be more in number and less in size. They came 
several times in a direction close upon us; that is, I believe, within less than 
two miles. They began immediately after sun-rise like a thick wood, and 
almost darkened the sun. His rays shining through them for near an hour, 
gave them an appearance of pillars of fire. Our people now became despe- 
rate; the Greeks shrieked out, and said it was the day of judgment : Ismae! 
pronounced it to be hell; and the Turcorories, that the world was on fire." 
Bruce's Travels, vol. iv. p. 553 — 555. 

From this account it would appear, that the eddies of wind were owing to 
the long range of broken rocks, which bounded one side of the sandy desert, 
and bent the currents of air, which struck against their sides; and were thus 
like the eddies in a stream of water which falls against oblique obstacles. 
This explanation is probably the true one, as these whirlwinds were not at- 
tended with rain or lightning like the tornadoes of the West-Indies. 



66 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

Who glide unseen, on printless slippers Ixjrnr*, 

IS . ith ', n .'. ] grass, and nodding corn; 

O l.n your tiny limbs, when noon-tide warms, 

V. ; i re shado vy cowslips stretch their golden arms,— 

S i ma] k'd on orreries in lucid signs, 505 

Su 1 ! inrith bright points the mimi-j zodiac shines ; 

B rn< on fine wires amid the pictured skies 

With ivory orbs the planets set and rise ; 

Round the dwarf earth the pearly moon is roll'd, 

And the sun twinkling whirls his rays of gold. — 510 

Call -.our bright m> riads, march your mailed hosts, 

With spears and helmets glittering round the coasts. 

Thick as the hairs, which rear the Lion's mane, 

Or fringe the Boar, that bays the hunter-train; 

Watch, where proud Surges break their treacherous mounds, 

And swetp resistless oYr the cultured grounds ; 516 

Such as en \hile, impelled o'er Belgia's plain, 

Roll'd her rich ruins to the insatiate Main; 

With piles and piers the ruffian Waves engage, 

And bid indignant Ocean stay his rage. 52© 

" Where, girt with clouds, the rifted Mountain yawns, 
And chills with length of shade the gelid lawns, 
Climb the rude steeps, the granite cliffs surround, 
Pierce with steel points, with wooden wedges wound ; 



Somark'd on orreries. 1. 505. The first orrery was constructed by a Mi 
Rowley, a mathematician born at Lichfield, and so named from his patron, 
the Earl of Orrery. Johnson's Dictionary. 

The granite cliffs. 1 523. On long exposure to air, the granites or porpho- 
ries of this country exhibit a ferruginous crust ; the iron being calcined by the 
air, first becomes visible, and is then washed away from the external surface, 
which becomes while or grey,' and thus, in time, seems to decompose. The 
marbles seem to decompose by losing their carbonic acid, as the outside, 
which has been l<mg exposed to the air, does not seem to effervesce so hastily 
with acids as the parts more recenth broken. The immense ijuantit) of car- 
bonic acid which exists in the many provinces of lime-stone, if it was c.\- 
ind decomposed, would afford charcoal enough for fuel for ages, or 
fur the production of new vegetable or animal bodies. The volcanic slags 
i i Vesuvius are said, by M. Ferber, to be changed inttclaj by means 
of the sulphur-acid ; and even pots made of clay, and burnt, or vitrified, are 
said b him to be again reducible to ductile clay, l>y the volcanic steams 
!•• r's ["ravel through Italy, p. 166. See additional notes, No. XXIV. 

toound. 1 524. It is usual, in separating huge mill-stones 
from the adiceoue sand-rocks in some pans of Derbyshire, to bore her., oota] 



Canto II. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 67 

Break into clays the soft volcanic slags, 525 

Or melt with acid airs the marble crags ; 

Crown the green summits with adventurous flocks, 

And charm ivith novel flowers the wondering Rocks. 

— Bo tvhen proud Rome the Afric Warrior braved, 

And high on Alps his crimson banner waved ; 530 

While Rocks on Rocks th-ir beeding brows oppose 

With piny forests, and unfathem'd snows ; 

Onward he march'jd, to Latium's velvet ground, 

With fires and acids burst the obdurate bound, 

Wide o'er the weeping Vales destruction hurFd, S3S 

And shook the rising empire of the world. 

X. " Go gentle Gnomes ! resume your vernal toil, 
Seek my chill tribes, which sleep beneath the soil ; 
On grey-moss banks, green meads, or furrow'd lands, 
Spread the dark mould, white lime, and crumbling sands ; 
Each bursting bud with healthier juices feed, 541 

Emerging scion, or awaken'd seed. 
So, in descending streams, the silver Chyle 
Streaks with white clouds the golden floods of Bile ; 
Through each nice valve the mingling currents glide, 545 

Join their fine rills, and swell the sanguine tide ; 
Each countless cell, and viewless fibre seek, 
Nerve the strong arm, and tinge the blushing cheek. 



" Oh, watch, where bosom'd in the teeming earth, 
Green swells the germ, impatient for its birth; 



550 



holes under them in a circle, and fill these with pegs made of dry wood, which 
gradually swell, by the moisture of the earth, and, in a day or two, lift up 
the mill-stone without breaking it. 

With fires and acids. 1. 534. Hannibal was said to erode-his way over the 
Alps by fire and vinegar. The latter is supposed to allude to the vinegar and 
water which was the beverage of his army. In respect to the former it is not 
improbable, but where wood was to be had in great abundance, that fires 
made round lime-stone precipices would calcine them to a considerable depth; 
the night-dews, or mountain-mists would penetrate these calcined parts, and 
pulverize them by the force of the steam which the generated heat would pro- 
duce, the winds would disperse this lime-powder, and thus, by repeated fires, 
a precipice of lime-stone might be destroyed, and a passage opened. It should 
be added, that according to Ferber's observations, these Alps consist of lime- 
stone. Letters from Italy. 



68 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

Guard from rapacious worms its tender shoots, 

And drive the mining beetle from its roots ; 

With ceaseless efforts rend the obdurate clay, 

And give my vegetable babes to day ! 

— Thus when an Angel-form, in light array'd, 555 

Like Howard pierced the prison's noisome shade; 

Where, chain'd to earth, with eyes to heaven upturn'd, 

The kneeling Saint in holy anguish mourn'd ; — 

Ray'd from his lucid vest, and halo'd brow, 

Qe'r the dark roof celestial lustres glow, 560 

* Peter, arise!' with cheering voice he calls, 

And sounds seraphic echo round the walls ; 

Locks, bolts, and chains his potent touch obey, 

And pleased he leads the exulting Sage to day. 

XL " You! whose fine fingers fill the organic cells 565 

With virgin earth, of woods, and bones, and shells ; 
JMould widi retractile glue their spongy beds, 
And stretch and strengthen all their fibre threads. — 
Late when the mass obeys its changeful doom, 
And sinks to earth, its cradle and its tomb, 5/0 

Gnomes! with nice eye the slow solution watch, 
With fostering hand the parting atoms catch, 
Join in new forms, combine with life and sense, 
And guide and guard the transmigrating Ens. 

Mould with retractile glue. 1. 567. The constituent parts of animal fibrer 
arc believed to be earth and gluten. These do not separate except by long 
putrefaction or by fire. The earth then effervesces with acids, and can only 
be converted into glass by the greatest force of fire. The gluten has con- 
tinued united with the earth of the bones above 2000 years in Egyptian mum- 
mies ; but, by long exposure to air or moisture, it dissolves, and leaves only 
the earth. Hence, bones long buried, when exposed to the air, absorb mois- 
ture, and crumble into powder. Phil. Trans. No. 475. The retractibility 
or elasticity of the animal fibre depends on the gluten ; and of these fibres 
arc composed the membranes, muscles, and bones. Haller. Phvsiol. torn. i. 
p. 2. 

For the chemical decomposition of animal and vegetable bodies, see the 
ingenious work of Lavoisier, Traite de Chimie, torn. i. p. 132, who resolves 
all their component parts into oxygene, hydrogene, carbone, and azote; the 
three former of which belong principally to vegetable, and the last to animal 
matter. 

The transmigrating Ens. 1.574. The perpetual circulation of matter, in 
the growth and dis;,oluiion of vegetable and animal bodies, seems to have 
given Pythagoras his idea ol 01 transmigration of spirit^ 



Canto II. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 69 

" So when on Lebanon's sequester'd hight 575. 

The fair Adoxis left the realms of light, 
Bow'd his bright locks, and, fated from his birth 
To change eternal, mingled with the earth ; — 
With darker horror shook the conscious wood, 
Groan'd the sad gales, and rivers blush'd with blood ; 580 

On cypress boughs the Loves their quivers hung, 
Their arrows scatter'd, and their bows unstrung ; 
And Beauty's Goddess, bending o'er his bier, 
Breathed the soft sigh, and pour'd the tender tear. — 

which was afterwards dressed out, or ridiculed, in a variety of amusing fables. 
Other philosophers have supposed, that there are two different materials or 
essences, which fill the universe. One of these, which has the power of 
commencing or producing motion, is called spirit ; the other, which has the 
power of receiving and of communicating motion, but not of beginning it, is 
called matter. The former of these is supposed to be diffused through all 
space, filling up the interstices of the suns and planets, and constituting the 
gravitations of the sidereal bodies, the attractions of chemistry, with the 
spirit of vegetation, and of animation. The latter occupies comparatively but 
small space, constituting the solid parts of the sun and planets, and their at- 
mospheres. Hence these philosophers have supposed, that both matter and 
spirit are equally immortal and unperishable ; and that, on the dissolution of 
vegetable or animal organization, the matter returns to the general mass of 
matter, and the spirit to the general mass of spirit, to enter again into new 
combinations, according to the original idea of Pythagoras. 

The small apparent quantity of matter that exists in the universe, compar- 
ed to that of spirit, and the short time in which the recrements of animal 
or vegetable bodies become again vivified in the forms of vegetable mucor or 
microscopic insects, seems to have given rise to another curious fable of anti- 
quity ; that Jupiter threw down a large handful of souls upon the earth, and 
left them to scramble for the few bodies which were to be had. 

Adonis. 1. 576. The very ancient story of the beautiful Adonis passing one 
half of the year with Venus, and the other with Proserpine, alternately, has 
had variety of interpretations. Some have supposed that it allegorized the 
summer and winter solstice ; but this seems too obvious a fact to have needed 
an hierogl)phic emblem. Others have believed it to represent the corn, which 
was supposed to sleep in the earth during the winter months, and to rise out 
of it in summer. This does not accord with the climate of Egypt, where the 
harvest soon follows the seed-time. 

It seems more probably to have been a story explaining some hieroglyphic 
figures representing the decomposition and resuscitation of animal matter; 
a sublime and interesting subject, and which seems to have given origin to 
the doctrine of transmigration, which had probably its birth also from the 
hieroglyphic treasures of Egypt. It is remarkable that the cypress groves, 
in the ancient Greek writers, as in Theocritus, were dedicated to Venus, and 
afterwards became funeral emblems. Which was probably occasioned by 
the Cypress being an accompaniment of Venus in the annual processions, in 
which she was supposed to lament over the funeral of Adonis ; a ceremony 
which obtained over all the eastern world from great antiquity, and is sup- 
posed to be referred to by Ezekiel, who accuses the idolatrous woman of 
weeping for Thammus. 



TO BOTANIC GARDEN. Paet I. 

Admiring Proserpine through dusky glades 58J 

Led the fair phantom to Elysian shaded, 

Clad with now form, with finer sense combined, 

And lit with purer flame the ethereal mind. 

— Erewhfle, emerging from infernal night, 

The bright Assurgent rises into light, 590 

Leaves the drear chambers of the insatiate tomb, 

And shines and charms with renovated bloom. — 

Wliile wondering Loves the bursting grave surround, 

And edge with meeting wings the yawning ground, 

Stretch their fair necks, and leaning o'er the brink, 595 

View the pale regions of the dead, and shrink ; 

Long with broad eyes ecstatic Beauty stands, 

Heaves her white bosom, spreads her waxen hands ; 

Then with loud shriek the panting Youth alarms, 

* My Life ! my Love !' and springs into his arms." 600 

The Goddess ceased, — the delegated throng 
O'er the wide plains delighted rush along ; 
In duskv squadrons, and in shining groups, 
Hosts follow hosts, and troops succeed to troops ; 
Scarce bears the bending grass the moving freight, 605 

And nodding florets bow beneath their weight. 
So when light clouds on airy pinions sail, 
Flit the soft shadows o'er the waving vale ; 
Shade follows shade, as laughing Zephyrs drive, 
And all die chequer'd landscape seems alive. 610 

Zephyrs drive. I. 609. These lines were originally written thus, 
Shade follows shade, by laughing Zephjrs drove, 
And all the chequer'd landscape seems ro move; 
but were altered on account of the supposed false grammar in using the word 
drove for driven, according to the opinion of Dr. Lowth : at the same time it 
may be observed, 1. That iliis is, in many cases, only an ellipsis of the letter 
n at the end of the word, as froze for frozen, wove for woven, spoke for spo- 
ken, and that then the participle accidentally becomes similar to the past tense : 
2. That the language seem s gradually tending to omit the letter n in otha 
kind ol words, for the sake of euphony ; as housen is become houses; eynej 
eyes; thine, thy, Ike. and, in common conversation, the words I org 

Frequently used for forgotten, spoken, froien, ridden ... It 
tli it an) confusion would follow the indiscriminate 
■,.inH.- word i'oi the past tense and the participle passive, since the 

. 'i tin preceding noun or pronoun, al 
them: and, lastly, rhime-noetry must lose the use of many elegant words 
cense- 



THE 

ECONOMY OF VEGETATION, 
CANTO III, 



Part L M 



ARGUMENT 

OF THE 

THIRD CANTO. 



Address to the Nymphs. I. Steam rises from the ocean, floats in clouds, 
descends in rain and dew, or is condensed on hills, produces springs and 
rivers, and returns to the sea. So the blood circulates through the body 
and returns to the heart, 11. II. 1. Tides, 57. 2 Echinus, naucilus, 
pinna, cancer. Grotto of a mermaid, 65. 3. Oil stills the waves. Coral 
rocks. Ship-worm, or Teredo. Maelstrome, a whirlpool on the coast 
of Norway, 85. Ill Rivers from beneath the snows on the Alps The' 
Tiber, 103 IV. Overflowing of the Nile from African Monsoons, 129. 
V. 1. Giesar, a boiling fountain in Iceland, destroyed by inundation, and 
consequent earthquake, 145. 2- Warm medicinal springs. Buxton. Duke 
and Duchess of Devonshire, 157. VI. Combination of vital air and 
inflammable gas produces water. Which is another source of springs 
and rivers. Allegorical loves of Jupiter and Juno productive of vernal 
showers, 201. VII. Aquatic Taste. Distant murmur of the sea by night. 
Sea-horse. Nereid singing, 261. VIII. The Nymphs of the river Der- 
went lament the death of Mrs. French, 297. IX. Inland navigation. 
Monument for Mr. Brindley, 341. X. Pumps explained. Child suck- 
ing. Mothers exhorted to nurse their children. Cherub sleeping, 365. 
XI. Engines for extinguishing fire. Story of two lovers perishing in the 
flames, 397. XII. Charities of Miss Jones, 447. XIII. Marshes drained. 
Hercules conquers Achelous. The horn of plenty, 483. XIV. Showers. 
Dews. Floating lands with water. Lacteal system in animals Cara- 
van drinking, 529. Departure of the Nymphs like water-spiders ; like 
northern nations skaiting on the ice, 569. 



BOTANIC GARDEN. 



ECONOMY OF VEGETATION 



CANTO III. 

x\.GAIN the Goddess speaks! — glad Echo swells 

The tuneful tones along her shadowy dells, 

Her wrinkling founts with soft vibration shakes, 

Curls her deep wells, and rimples all her lakes, 

Thrills each wide stream, Britannia's isle that laves, 5 

Her headlong cataracts, and circumfluent waves. 

— Thick as the dews, which deck the morning flowers, 

Or rain-drops twinkling in the sun-bright showers. 

Fair Nymphs, emerging in pellucid bands, 

Rise, as she turns, and whiten all the lands. 10 

I. " Tour buoyant troops on dimpling ocean tread v 
Wafting the moist air from his oozy bed, 
Aquatic Nymphs! — you lead with viewless march 
The winged Vapours up the aerial arch, 

On each broad cloud a thousand sails expand, 15 

\nd steer the shadowy treasure o'er the land ; 

The ringed Vapours. 1. 14. See additional notes, No. XXV. on evapora- 
::on. 

On each broad cloud. 1. 15. The clouds consist of condensed vapour, the 
particles of which are too small separately to overcome the tenacity of the 
air, and which, therefore, do not descend. They are in such small spheres 
as to repel each other ; that is, they are applied to each other by such very 
small surfaces, that the attraction of the particles of each drop to its own 
centre, is greater than its attraction to the surface of the drop in its vicinity ; 
every one has observed with what difficulty small spherules of quicksilver 
can be made to unite, owing to the same cause ; and it is common to see, on 
riding through shallow water on a clear day, numbers of very small spheres 
of water, as they are thrown from the horse's feet, run along the surface for 
ijuny yards before they again unite with it. In many cases these spherules 



74 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

Through vernal skies the gathering drops diffuse, 

Plunge in soft rains, or sink in silver dews. — 

Tour lucid bands condense with fingers chill 

The blue mist hovering round the gelid hill ; 20 



of water, which compose clouds, are kept from uniting by a surplus of elec- 
tric fluid, and fall, in violent showers, as soon as that is withdrawn from 
them, as in thunder storms. See note on Canto I. 1. 554. 

If, in this stare, a cloud becomes frozen, it is torn to pieces in its descent, 
by the friction of the air, and falls in white Hakes of snow. Or these flah.es 
are rounded by being rubbed together by the winds, and by having their 
angles thawed off by the warmer air beneath as they descend; and part of 
the water produced by these angles, thus dissolved, is absorbed into the body 
of the hail-stone, as may be seen by holding a lump of snow over a candle, 
and there becomes frozen into ice, by the quantity of cold which the hail- 
etone possesses beneath the freezing point, or which, is produced by its quick 
evaporation in falling; and thus hail-stones are often found of greater or less 
density, according as they consist of a greater portion of snow or ice. If 
hail-stones consisted of the large drops of showers froaen in their descent, 
they would consist of pure transparent ice 

As hail is only produced in summer, and is always attended with storms, 
some philosophers have believed that the sudden departure of electricity 
from a cloud may effect something yet unknown in this phenomenon ; but it 
may happen in summer independent of electricity, because aqueous vapour 
is then raised higher in the atmosphere, whence it has further to fall, and 
there is warmer air below for it to fall through. 

Or sink in silver dews 1. 18. During the coldness of the night the moisture 
before dissolved in the air is gradually precipitated, and, as it subsides, ad- 
heres to the bodies it falls upon. Where the attraction of the body to the 
particles of water is greater than the attractions of those particles to each 
other, it becomes spread upon their surface, or slides down them in actual 
contact, as on the broad parts of the blades of moist grass. Where the at- 
traction of the surface to the water is less than the attraction of the particles 
of water to each other, the dew stands iu drops, as on the points and edges 
of grass or gorse, where the surface presented to the drop being small, it at- 
tracts it so little as but just to support it without much changing its globu- 
lar form. Where there is no attraction between the vegetable surface and 
the dew drops, as on cabbage leaves, the drop does not come into contact 
with the leaf, but hangs over it repelled, and retains its natural form, com- 
posed of the attraction and pressure of its own parts, and thence looks like 
quicksilver, reflecting light from both its surfaces. Nor is this owing to any 
oiliness of the leaf, but simply to the polish of its surface, as a light needle 
may be laid on water in the same manner without touching it ; for as the 
attractive powers of polished surfaces are greater when in actual contact, so 
the repulsive power is greater before contact. 

The blue mist. 1. 20. Mists are clouds resting on the ground ; they gene- 
rally come on at the beginning of night, and either I'll the mots: vallies, or 
hang on the summits of hills, according to the decree of Hi 

dissolved, and the eduction of heat from tliem. The air over riven, during 

li of the day, suspends much moisture ; and, as the cban 
face oi rivers occasions them to cool sooner than the land, ai the approach 

'. mists are most frequently seen to begin over rivers, and to spread 
themselves over moist grounds, and till the vullic ; , \ tS. on the 



Canto III. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 75 

In clay-form'd beds the trickling streams collect, 
Strain through white sands, through pebbly veins direct ; 
Or point in rifted rocks their dubious way, 
And in each bubbling fountain rise to day. 

" Nymphs.' you then guide, attendant from their source, 
The associate rills along their sinuous course; 26 

Float in bright squadrons by the willowy brink, 
Or circling slow in limpid eddies sink; 
Gall from her crystal cave the Naiad-Nymph, 
Who hides her fine form in the passing lymph, 30 

And, as below she braids her hyaline hair, 
Eyes her soft smiles reflected in the air ; 
Or sport in groups with River-Boys, that lave 
Their silken limbs amid the dashing wave ; 
Pluck the pale primrose bending from its edge, 35 

Or tittering dance amid the whispering sedge. — 

" Onward you pass, the pine-capt hills divide, 
Or feed the golden harvests on their side ; 
The wide-ribb'd arch with hurrying torrents fill, 
Shove the slow barge, or whirl the foaming mill. 40 

tops of mountains are more properly clouds, condensed by the coldness of 
their situation. 

On ascending up trie side of a hill from a misty valley, I have observed a 
beautiful coloured halo round the moon, when a certain thickness of mist 
was over me, which ceased to be visible as soon as I emerged out of it ; and 
■well remember admiring, with other spectators, the shadow of the three 
spires of the cathedral church at Lichiield, the moon rising behind it, appa- 
rently broken off, and lying distinctly over our heads, as if horizontally on 
the surface of the mist, which arose about as high as the roof of the church. 
There are some curious remarks on shadows, or reflections seen on the sur- 
face of mists from high mountains, in Ulloa's Voyages. The dry mist of 
summer 1783. was probably occasioned by volcanic eruption, as mentioned 
in note on Chunda, vol. ii. and, therefore, more like the atmosphere of 
smoke, which hangs, on still days, over great cities. 

There is a dry mist, or rather a diminished transparence of the air, which, 
according to Mr. Saussure, accompanies fair weather, while great transpa- 
rence of air indicates rain. Thus when large rivers, two miles broad, such 
as at Liverpool, appear narrow, it is said to prognosticate rain, and when 
wide, fair whether. This want of transparence of the air, in dry weather, 
may be owing to new combinations or decompositions of the vapours dissolved 
in it, but wants further investigation. Essais sur L'llygrometrie, p. 357. 

Round the gelid bill. ib. See additional notes, No. XXVI. on the origin 
Of springs. 



76 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

Or lead with beckoning hand the sparkling train 

Of refluent water to its parent main, 

And pleased revisit in their sea-moss vales 

Blue Nereid-forms array'd in shining scaK ■;, 

Shapes, v, hose broad oar the torpid wave impels, 45 

'\nd Tritons bellowing through their twisted shells. 

u So from the heart the sanguine Stream distils 
O'er Beauty's radiant shrine in vermil rills, 
Feeds each fine nerve, each slender hair pervades, 
The skin's bright snow with living purple shades, 50 

Each dimpling cheek with warmer blushes dyes 
Laughs on the lips, and lightens in the eyes. 
— Erewhile absorb'd, the vagrant globules swim 
From each fair feature, and proportion'd limb, 
jcin'd in one trunk widi deeper tint return 55 

To the warm concave of the vital urn. 

II. 1. " Aquatic maids! ijou sway the mighty realms 
Of scale and shell, which Ocean overwhelms; 
As Night's pale Queen her rising orb reveals, 
And climbs the zenith with refulgent wheels, 60 

Carr'd on the foam your glimmering legion rides, 
Your little tridents heave the dashing tides, 

Carr'd on tie foam. 1. 61. The phenomena of the tides have been well in 
vestigated, and satisfactorily explained, by Sir Isaac Newton and Dr. Halley, 
from the reciprocal gravitations of the earth, moon, and sun. As the earth 
and moon move round a centre of motion near the earth's surface, at the 
same time that they are proceeding in their annual orbit round the sun, it 
follows, that the water on the side of the earth nearest this centre of motion, 
between the earth and moon, will be more attracted by the moon, and the 
waters on the opposite side of the earth will be less attracted by the moon, 
:han the central parts of the earth. Add to this, that the centrifugal force of 
rhe water on the side of the earth furthest from the centre of the motion 
round which the earth and moon move (which, as was said before, is Deal 
the surface of the earth), is greater than that on the opposite side of the earth. 
From both these causes it is easy to comprehend, that the water will rise on 
•wo sides of the earth, viz. on that neatest to the moon, and its Opposite 
side, and that it will be flattened, in consequence, at the quadratures, and 
thus produce two tides in every lunar day, which consists of about twent| 
four hours and forty-eight minutes. 

Thes< tidei will be also affected by the solar attraction when it coincide! 
with the lunar one. or opposes it, as at new and full moon, and will also be 
much influenced by the opposing shores in every part of the earth. 

Now, as the moon, in moving round the centre of gravity betv ■ 



Canto III. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 77 

Urge on the sounding shores their crystal course, 
Restrain their fury, or direct their force. 

2. " Nymphs ! you adorn, in glossy volutes roll'd, 6S 

The gaudy couch, with azure, green, and gold. 

and the earth, describes a much larger orbit than the earth describes round 
the same centre, it follows, that the centrifugal motion on the side of the. 
moon opposite to the earth must be much greater than the centrifugal motion 
of the side of the earth opposite to the moon round the same centre. And, 
secondly, as the attraction of the earth exerted on the moon's surface next 
to the earth is much greater than the attraction of the moon exerted on the 
earth's surface, the tides on the lunar sea (if such there be) should be much 
greater than those of our ocean. Add to this, that as the same face of the 
moon always is turned to the earth, the lunar tides must be permanent, and 
if the solid parts of the moon be spherical, must always cover the phasis next 
to us. But as there are evidently hills, and vales, and volcanos, on this side 
of the moon, the consequence is, that the moon has no ocean, or that it is 
frozen. 

The gaudy couch. 1. 66. The spiral form of many shells seems to have af- 
forded a more frugal manner of covering the long tail of the fish with calca- 
reous armour; since a single thin partition between the adjoining circles of 
the fish was sufficient to defend both surfaces, and thus much cretaceous mat- 
ter is saved ; and it is probable, that from this spiral form they are better 
enabled to feel the vibrations of the element in which they exist. See note 
on Canto IV. 1. 162. This cretaceous matter is formed by a mucous secre- 
tion from the skin of the fish, as is seen in crab-fish, and others which an- 
nually cast their shells, and is at first a mucous covering (like that of a hen's 
egg, when it is laid a day or two too soon), and which gradually hardens. 
This may also be seen in common shell snails; if a part of their shell be 
broken, it becomes repaired in a similar manner with mucus, which, by de- 
grees, hardens into shell. 

It is probable the calculi, or stones found in other animals, may have a 
similar origin, as they are formed on mucous membranes, as those of the 
kidney and bladder, chalk-stones in the gout, and gall-stones ; and are pro- 
bably owing to the inflammation of the membrane where they are produced, 
and vary according to the degree of inflammation of the membrane which 
forms them, and the kind of mucus which it naturally produces. Thus the 
shelly matter of different shell-fish differs, from the coarser kinds, which 
form the shells of crabs, to the finer kinds, which produce the mother-pearl. 

The beautiful colours of some shells originate from the thinness of the la- 
minx of which they consist, rather than to any colouring matter, as is seen 
in mother-pearl, which reflects different colours according to the obliquity of 
the light which falls on it. The beautiful prismatic colours seen on the La- 
bradore stone, are owing to a similar cause, viz. the thinness of the lamins 
of which it consists, and has probably been formed from mother-pearl shells. 

It is curious that some of the most common fossil shells are not now known 
in their recent state, as the cornua ammonis ; and, on the contrary, many 
shells which are very plentiful in their recent state, as limpets, sea-ears, vo- 
lutes, cowries, are very rarely found fossil. Da Costa's Conchology, p. 163. 
Were all the ammonise destroyed when the continents were raised ? Or do 
some genera of animals perish by the increasing power of their enemies ? 
Or do they still reside at inaccessible depths in the sea >. Or do some animals 
:hange their forms gradually, and become new genera ? 



78 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

You round Echinus ray his arrowy mail, 

Give the- keel'd Nautilus his oar and sail ; 

Firm to his rock with silver cords suspend 

The anchor' d Pinna, and his Cancer-friend ; 7*0 

With worm-like beard his toothless lips array, 

And teach the unwieldy Sturgeon to betray. — 

Ambush'd in weeds, or sepulchred in sands, 

In dread repose he waits the seal}- bands, 

Waves in red spires the living lures, and draws 75 

The unwary plunderers to his circling jaws, 

Eyes with grim joy the twinkling shoals beset, 

And clasps the quick inextricable net. 

You chase the warrior Shark, and cumbcrous Whale, 

And guard the Mermaid in her briny vale ; 80 

Feed the live petals of her insect-flowers, 

Her shell-wrack gardens, and her sea-fan bowers ; 

With ores and gems adorn her coral cell, 

And drop a pearl in every gaping shell. 

3. " Your myriad trains o'er stagnant oceans tow, 85 

Harness'd with gossamer, the loitering prow; 

Echinus. Nautilus. 1. 6", 68. See additional notes, No. XXVII. 

Pinna. Cancer. 1. 70. See additional notes, No. XXVII. 

With luorm-like beard. 1. 71. See additional notes, No. XXVIII. 

Feed the live petals. 1. 81. There is a sea-insect described by Mr. Huges, 
whose claws, or tentacles, being disposed in regular circles, and tinged with 
variety of bright lively colours, represent the petals of some most elegantly 
fringed and radiated flowers, as the carnation, marigold, and anemone. 
Philos. Trans. Abridg. vol. ix. p. 110. The Abbe Dicquemarre has further 
elucidated the history of the actinia, and observed their manner of taking 
their prey by enclosing it in these beautiful rays like a net. Phil. Trans, vol 
Ixiii. lxv. and Ixvii. 

And drop a pearl. 1. 84. Many are the opinions, both of ancient and mo. 
dern writers, concerning the production of pearls. Mr. Reaumur thinks 
they are formed like the hard concretions in many land animals, as stones 
of the bladder, gall-stones, and bezoar, and hence concludes them to be a 
disease of the fish; but there seems to be a stricter analog? between these 
and the calcareous productions found in crab-fish, called crab's eyes, which 
are formed near the stomach of the animal, and constitute a reservoir of cal- 
careous matter against the renovation of the shell, at which time they are 
re-dissolved, and deposited for that purpose. As the internal pan of thr 
Shell of the pearl, oyster, or muscle, consists of mother-pearl, which is a simi- 
lar material to tin? pearl, and as the animal has annually occasion to enlarge 
his shell, there is reason to suspect the loose pearls are similar reser 
■ 



Canto III. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 79 

Or with fine films, suspended o'er the deep, 

Of oil effusive lull the waves to sleep. 

Tou stay the flying bark, conceal'd beneath, 

Where living rocks of worm-built coral breathe j 90 

Meet fell Teredo, as he mines the keel 

With beaked head, and break his lips of steel ; 

Turn the broad helm, the fluttering canvass urge 

From Maelstrome's fierce innavigable surge. 

— 'Mid the lorn isles of Norway's stormy main, 9$ 

As sweeps o'er many a league his eddying train, 

Vast watery walls in rapid circles spin, 

And deep-ingulph'd the Demon dwells within; 

Springs o'er the fear-froze crew with harpy-claws, 

Down his deep den the whirling vessel draws ; 100 

Churns with his bloody mouth the dread repast, 

The booming waters murmuring o'er the mast. 

III. " Where with chill frown enormous Alps alarms 
A thousand realms, horizon'd in his arms ; 
While cloudless suns meridian glories shed 105 

From skies of silver round his hoary head, 
Tall rocks of ice refract the colour'd rays, 
And Frost sits throned amid the lambent blaze ; 
Nymphs ! your thin forms pervade his glittering piles, 
His roofs of crystal, and his glassy aisles ; 1 10 

Where in cold caves imprison'd Naiads sleep, 
Or chain'd on mossy couches wake and weep ; 



Or with fine films. 1. 87. See additional notes, No. XXIX. 

Where living rocks. 1. 90. The immense and dangerous rocks built by the 
swarms of coral insects, which rise almost perpendicularly in the southern 
ocean, like walls, are described in Cook's Voyages; a point of one of these 
rocks broke off, and stuck in the hole which it had made in the bottom of 
one of his ships, which would otherwise have perished by the admission of 
water. The numerous lime-stone rocks, which consist of a congeries of the 
cells of these animals, and which constitute a great part of the solid earth, 
show their prodigious multiplication in all ages of the world. Specimens of 
these rocks are to be seen in the lime-works at Linsel, near Newport in 
Shropshire, in Coal-brook Dale, and in many parts of the Peak of Derby- 
shire. The insect has been well described by M. Peyssonnel, Ellis, and othere- 
Phil. Trans, vol. xlvii. 1. lii. and lvii. 

Meet fell Teredo. 1. 91. See additional notes, No. XXX. 

Turn the broad helm. 1. 93. See additional note,s, No, XXXI, 

Part I. N 



ao BOTANIC GARDEN. Part L 

Where round {I lignant Waters bend 

Through rifted ice, in ivory veins descend, 

Seek through unfathom'd snows their devious track, lid 

Heave the vast spars, the ribbed granites track, 

Rush into day, in foamy torrents shine, 

And swell the imperial Danube or the Rhine. — 

— Or feed the murmuring Tiber, as he i 

His realms inglorious with diminish'd wa 120 

Hears his lorn Forum sound with Eunuch-strains, 

Sees dancing slaves insult his martial plains ; 

Parts with chill stream the dim religious bower, 

Time-moulder'd bastion, and dismantled tower ; 



Where round dark crags. 1. 113. See additional notes, No. XXXII. 

Heave the vast spars. 1. 116. Water, in descending down elevated situa- 
tions, if the outlet for it below is not sufficient for its emission, acts with a 
force equal to the height of the column, as is seen in an experimental ma- 
chine calljd the philosophical bellows, in which a few pints of water ire 
made to raise many hundred pounds. To this cause is to be ascribed many 
large promontories of ice being occasionally thrown down from the glaciers; 
rocks have likewise been thrown from the sides of mountains by the same 
«ause, and large portions of earth have been removed many hundred yards 
from their situations at the foot of mountains. On inspecting the locomotion 
of about thirty acres of earth, with a small house, near Bilder's Bridge, in 
Shropshire, about twenty years ago, from the foot of a mountain towards tht 
river, I well remember it bore all the marks of having been thus lifted up, 
pushed away, and, as it were, crumpled into ridges, by a column of water 
contained in the mountain. 

From water being thus confined in high columns, between the strata of 
mountainous countries, it has often happened, when wells or perforations 
have been made into the earth, that springs have arisen much above the sur- 
face of the new well. When the new bridge was building at Dublin, Mr. 
G. Semple found a spring in the bed of the river where he meant to lay the 
foundation of a pier, which, by fixing iron pipes into it, he raised many 
feet. Treatise on Building in Water, by G. Semple. From having observed 
a valley north-west of St. Alkmond's well, near Derby, at the head of which 
that spring of water once probably existed, and by its current formed the 
valley (but which, in after times, found its way out in its present situa 
tion), I suspect that St. Alkmond's well might, by building round it, be 
raised high enough to supply many streets in Derby with spring-water, which 
are now only supplied with river-water. See an account of U 
spring of water. Phil. Trans, vol. lxxv. p. 1. 

In making a well at Sheerness the water rose 300 feet above its source 
.n the well. Phil. Trans, vol. lxxiv. And at Hartford, in Connecticut, 
there is a well which was dug seventy feet deep before water w 
then, in boring an anger-hole through a rock, the water ItM so fast as ro 
make it difficult to keep it dry by pumps, till they could blow the hole larger 
by gun-powder, which was no sooner accomplished than it filled, 

id has been a brook for near a century. Travels through America. 
- 




J /',/'//// \ /////// < / ' y ' y/> ' / 



Canto III. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 

By alter'd fanes and nameless villas glides, 
And classic domes, that tremble on his sides ; 
Sighs o'er each broken urn, and yawning tomb, 
And mourns the fall of Liberty and Rome. 

IV. " Sailing in air, when dark Monsoon inshrouds 
His tropic mountains in a night of clouds ; 
Or drawn by whirlwinds from the Line returns, 
And showers o'er Afric all his thousand urns ; 
High o'er his head the beams of Sirius glow, 
And, Dog of Nile, Anubis, barks below. 
Nymphs I you from cliff to cliff attendant guide,, 
In headlong cataracts, the impetuous tide ; 
Or lead o'er wastes of Abyssinian sands 
The bright expanse to Egypt's showerless lands. 



Dark Monsoon inshrouds. 1. 129. When from any peculiar situations of 
iand, in respest to sea, the tropic becomes more heated, when the sun is 
vertical over it, than the line, the periodical winds, called monsoons, arc 
produced, and these are attended by rainy seasons ; for as the air at the tro- 
pic is now more heated than at the line, it ascends by decrease of its specific 
gravity, and floods of air rush in both from the south-west and north-east, 
and these being one warmer than the other, the rain is precipitated by their 
mixture, as observed by Dr. Hutton. See additional notes, No. XXV. All 
late travellers have ascribed the rise of the Nile to the monsoons which de- 
luge Nubia and Abyssinia with rain. The whirling of the ascending air was 
even seen by Mr. Bruce in Abyssinia : he says, " Every morning a small cloud 
began to whirl round, and presently after the whole heavens became covered 
with clouds." By this vortex of ascending air the N. E. winds and the S. 
W. winds, which flow in to supply the place of the ascending column, be- 
came mixed more rapidly, and deposited their rain in greater abundance. 

Mr. Volney observes, that the time of the rising of the Nile commences 
about the 19th of June ; and that Abyssinia and the adjacent parts of Africa 
are deluged with rain in May, June, and July, and produce a mass of water 
• which is three months in draining off. The Abbe La Pluche observes, that 
as Sirius, or the dog-star, rose at the time of the commencement of the flood, 
its rising was watched by the astronomers, and notice given of the approach 
of inundation, by hanging the figure of Anubis, which was that of a man 
with a dog's head, upon all their temples. Histoire de Ciel. 

Egypt's showerless lands. I. 138. There seem to be two situations which 
/nay be conceived to be exempted from rain falling upon them ; one where 
the constant trade-winds meet beneath the line, for here two regions of warm 
air are mixed together, and thence do not seem to have any cause to precipi- 
tate their vapour ; and the other is, where the winds are brought from colder 
climates and become warmer by their contact with the earth of a warmer 
one. Thus Lower Egypt is a flat country, warmed by the sun more than the 
Higher lands on one side of it, and than the Mediterranean on the other, 
and hence the winds which blow over it acquire greater warmth, whichevet 
way they come, than they possessed before, and in consequence have a ten 



82 UOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

— Her long canals the sacred waters fill, 

And edge with silv.r eveiy peopled hill ; 140 

Gigantic Sphinx in circling waves admire, 

And Mf.mnon bending o'er his broken lyre; 

O'er furrow'd glebes and green savannas sweep, 

And towns and temples laugh amid the deep. 

V. 1. " High in the frozen North where Heccla glows, 
And melts in torrents his coeval snows ; 146 

O'er isles and oceans sheds a sanguine light, 
Or shoots red stars amid the ebon night ; 
When, at his base intomb'd, with bellowing sound 
Fell Giesar roar'd, and, struggling, shook the ground; 150 
Pour'd from red nostrils, with her scalding breath, 
A boiling deluge o'er the blasted heath ; 
And, wide in air, in misty volumes hurl'd 
Contagious atoms o'er the alarmed world ; 
Nymph* ! your bold myriads broke the infernal spell, 155 

And crush'd the Sorceress in her flinty cell. 

2. " Where with soft fires in unextinguish'd urns, 
Cauldron'd in rock, innocuous Lava burns ; 
On the bright lake your gelid hands distil 
In pearly showers the parsimonious rill ; 160 

dency to acquire and not to part with their vapour, like the north-east winds 
of this country. There is said to be a narrow spot upon the coast of Peru, 
where rain seldom occurs ; at the same time, according to Ulloa, on the 
mountainous regions of the Andes, beyond, there is almost perpetual rain. 
For the wind blows uniformly upon this hot part of the coast of Peru, but no 
cause of devaporation occurs till it begins to ascend the mountainous Andes, 
and then its own expansion produces cold sufficient to condense its vapour. 

Fell Giesar roar'd. 1. 150. The boiling column of water at Giesar in Ice- 
land, was nineteen feet in dinmeter, and sometimes roie to the height of 
ninety-two feet. On cooling, it deposited a siliceous matter, or chalcedony, 
forming a bason round its base. The heat of this water before it rose out of 
the earth could not be ascertained, as water loses all its hut above 313 (as 
soon as it is at liberty to expand) by the exhalation of a part ; but the rlinty 
bason which is deposited from it shows that water, with great degrees of 
heat, will dissolve siliceous matter. Van Troil's Letters on Iceland Since 
the above account, in the year 1780, this part of Iceland has been dcttroyed 
b) an earthquake, or covered with lava, which was probably effected bj the 
force of aqueous steam, a greater quantit) of water falling on the bubterra- 
. icons fires than could escape by the ancient oudets, and generating an in- 
creased quantity of vapour. For the dispersion of contagious vapours from 
volcanos, see an account of the Harmauan, in the notes on Chunda, vol. ii 



Canto III. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 

And, as aloft the curling vapours rise 
Through the cleft roof, ambitious for the skies, 
In vaulted hills condense the tepid steams, 
And pour to Health the medicated streams. 
— So in green vales amid her mountains bleak 
Buxtonia smiles, the Goddess-Nymph of Peak ; 
Deep in warm waves, and pebblv paths she dwells, 
And calls Hygeia to her sainted wells. 

u Hither in sportive bands bright Devon leads 
Graces and Loves from Chatsworth's flowery meads. 
Charm'd round the Nymph, they climb the rifted rocks. 
And steep in mountain-mist their golden locks ; 
On venturous step her sparry caves explore, 
And light with radiant eyes her realms of ore. 
— Oft by her bubbling founts, and shadowy domes, 
In gay undress the fairy legion roams, 
Their dripping palms in playful malice fill, 
Or taste with ruby lip the sparkling rill ; 
Crowd round her baths, and, bending o'er the side, 
Unclasp'd their sandals, and their zones untied, 
Dip with gay fear the shuddering foot undress'd, 
And quick retract it to the fringed vest ; 
Or cleave with brandish'd arms the lucid stream, 
And sob, their blue eyes twinkling in the steam. 



Buxtonia smiles. 1. 166. Some arguments are mentioned in the note on 
Fucus, vol. ii. to show that the warm springs of this country do not arise 
from the decomposition of pyrites near the surface of the earth, but that they 
are produced by steam rising up the fissures of the mountains from great 
depths, owing to water falling on subterraneous fires, and that this steam is 
condensed between the strata of the incumbent mountains, and collected into 
springs. For further proofs on this subject the reader is referred to a lette? 
from Dr. Darwin, in Mr. Pilkinton's View of Derbyshire, vol. i. p. 256. 

And sob, their blue eyes. 1. 184. The bath at Buxton being of 82 degrees of 
heat, is called a warm bath, and is so compared with common spring-water, 
which possesses but 48 degrees of heat, but is nevertheless a cold bath compared 
to the heat of the body, which is 98. On going into this bath there is there- 
fore always a chill perceived at the first immersion ; but after having been in i* 
a minute, the chill ceases, and a sensation of warmth succeeds, though the 
body continues to be immersed in the water. The cause of this curious phe- 
nomenon is to be looked for in the laws of animal sensation, and not from any 
properties of heat. When a person goes from clear day-light into an obscure 
room, for a while it appears gloomy ; which gloom, however, in a little time 
ceases, and the deficiency of light becomes no longer perceived. This is not 



84 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

— High o'er the chequer'd vault with transient glow 185 

Bright lustres dart, as dash the waves below ; 

And Echo's sweet responsive voice prolongs 

The dulcet tumult of their silver tongues — 

O'er their flush'd cheeks uncurling tresses flow, 

And dew-drops glitter on their necks of snow; 190 

Round each fair Nymph her dropping mantle clings, 

And Loves emerging shake their showery wingB. 

u Here oft her Lord surveys the rude domain, 
Fair arts of Greece triumphant in his train ; 
Lo! as he steps, the column'd pile ascends, 195 

The blue roof closes, or the crescent bends ; 
New woods aspiring clothe their hills with green, 
Smooth slope the lawns, the grey rock peeps between ; 
Relenting Nature gives her hand to Taste, 
And Health and Beauty crown the laughing waste. 200 

VI. " Nymphs ! your bright squadrons watch with chemk 
eyes 
The cold-elastic vapours, as they rise ; 
With playful force arrest them as they pass, 
And to pure Air betroth the Jlcvnvig Gas. 

solely owing to the enlargement of the iris of the eye, since that is performed 
in an instant, but to this law of sensation, that when a less stimulus is applied 
(within certain bounds) the sensibility increases. Thus, at going into a bath 
as much colder than the body as that of Bu.\ton, the diminution of heat on 
the skin is at first perceived ; but in about a minute the sensibility to heat 
increases, and the nerves of the skin are equally excited by the lessened sti- 
mulus. The sensation of warmth at emerging from a cold bath, and the paiu 
called the hot-ach, after the hands have been immersed in snow, depend on 
the same principle, viz. the increased sensibility of the skin after having been 
previously exposed to a stimulus less than usual. 

Here oft her Lord. I. 193. Alluding to the magnificent and beautiful cres- 
cent, and superb stables, lately erected at Buxton, for the accommodation of 
the company, by the Duke of Devonshire; and to the plantations with which 
he has decorated the surrounding mountains. 

And to pure air. 1.204. Until very lately water was esteemed a simple 
clement ; nor are all the most celebrated chemists of Europe yet converts to 
the new opinion of its decomposition. Mr Lavoisier, and others of the 
French school, have most ingeniously endeavoured to show, that water con. 
sists of pure air, called by them oxygene, and of inflammable air, called hy- 
drogene, with as much of the matter of heat, or calorique, as is necessary 
to pre lerve them in the form of gas. Gas is distinguished from steam by its 
preserving its claoti* i.\ under the pressure of the atmosphere, and in tlur 



Canto III. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 85 

Round their translucent forms at once they fling 205 

Their rapturous arms, with silver bosoms cling ; 

In fleecy clouds their fluttering wings extend, 

Or from the skies in lucid showers descend ; 

Whence rills and rivers owe their secret birth, 

And Ocean's hundred arms infold the earth. 210 

" So, robed by Beauty's Queen, with softer charms 
Saturnia woo'd the Thunderer to her arms; 
O'er her fair limbs a veil of light she spread, 
And bound a starry diadem on her head ; 
Long braids of pearl her golden tresses graced, 21o 

And the charm'd Cestus sparkled round her waist. 
—Raised o'er the woof, by Beauty's hand inwrought, 
Breathes the soft Sigh, and glows the enamour'd Thought: 
Vows on light wings succeed, and quiver'd Wiles, 
Assuasive Accents, and seductive Smiles* 220 

—Slow rolls the Cyprian car in purple pride, 
And, steer'd by Love, ascends admiring Ide; 
Climbs the green slopes, the nodding woods pervades, 
Burns round the rocks, or gleams amid the shades.-— 
Glad Zephyr leads the van, and waves above 22-5 

The barbed darts, and blazing torch of Love ; 
Reverts his smiling face, and pausing flings 
Soft showers of roses from aurelian wings. 

greatest degrees of cold yet known. The history of the progress of thia 
great discovery is detailed in the Memoirs of the Royal Academy for 1781, 
and the experimental proofs of it are delivered in Lavoisier's Elements of 
Chemistry. The results of which are, that water consists of eighty-five 
parts, by weight, of oxygene, and fifteen parts, by weight, of hydrogene, 
with a sufficient quantity of calorique. Not only numerous chemical pheno- 
mena, but many atmospherical and vegetable facts receive clear and beautiful 
elucidation from this important analysis. In the atmosphere, inflammable 
air is probably perpetually uniting with vital air, and producing moisture, 
which descends in dews and showers ; while the growth of vegetables, by 
the assistance of light, is perpetually again decomposing the water they im- 
bibe from the earth, and while they retain the inflammable air for the forma- 
tion of oils, wax, honey, resin, &c. they give up the vital air to replenish 
the atmosphere. 

And, iiteer'd by Love. 1. 222. The younger Love, or Cupid, the son of 
Venus, owes his existence and his attributes to much later times than the 
Eros, or Divine Love, mentioned in Canto I. since the former is no where 
mentioned by Homer, though so many apt opportunities of introducing him 
occur in the works of that immortal bard, Bacon, 



8b BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

Delighted Fawns, in wreaths of flowers array'd, 

With tiptoe Wood-I3o\ a beat the chequer'd glade; 230 

Alarmed Naiads, rising into air, 

Lift o'er their silver urns their leafy hair; 

Each to her oak die bashful Dryads shrink, 

And azure eyes are seen at every- chink. 

— Love culls a flaming shaft of broadest wing, -235 

And rests the fork upon the quivering string ; 

Points his arch eye aloft, with fingers strong 

Draws to his curled ear the silken thong ; 

Loud twangs the steel, the golden arrow flies, 

Trails a long line of lustre through the skies ; 240 

" 'Tis done!" he shouts, " the mighty Monarch feels!" 

And with loud laughter shakes the silver wheels ; 

Bends o'er the car, and whirling, as it moves, 

His loosen'd bowstring, drives the rising doves. 

— Pierced on his throne the starting Thunderer turns, 245 

Melts with soft sighs, with kindling rapture bums ; 

Clasps her fair hand, and eyes in fond amaze 

The bright Intruder with enamour'd gaze. 

" And leaves my Goddess, like a blooming bride, 

" The fanes of Argos for the rocks of Ide ? 250 

" Her gorgeous palaces, and amaranth bowers, 

" For clifF-top'd mountains, and aerial towers? n 

He said ; and, leading from her ivory seat 

The blushing beauty to his lone retreat, 

Curtain'd with night the couch imperial shrouds, 25S 

And rests the crimson cushions upon clouds. — 

Earth feels the grateful influence from above. 

Sighs the soft Air, and Ocean murmurs love; 

Ethereal Warmth expands his brooding wing. 

And in still showers descends the genial Spring. 260 



And in still thewcrt. 1.260. The allegorical interpretation of the - 
I ient mythology, which supposes Jupiter to represent the superior part of the 
atmosphere OI ether, and Juno t lie interior air, and that the conjunction of 
these two produces vernal showers, as alluded to in Virgil 

analogous to the present important discovery of the production of wate: 
from pure air, or oxygene, and inflammable air, or hydrogene, (wl 
its greater levin , probably resides over the former) that one should b< 
to believe, that the ven ancient chemists of Egypt had discovered i 



Canto III. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 87 

VII. " Nymphs of aquatic Taste! whose placid smile 
Breathes sweet enchantment o'er Britannia's isle ; 
Whose sportive touch in showers resplendent flings 
Her lucid cataracts, and her bubbling springs ; 
Through peopled vales the liquid silver guides, 26* 

And swells in bright expanse her freighted tides. 
You with nice ear, in tiptoe trains, pervade 
Dim walks of morn or evening's silent shade j 
Join the lone Nightingale, her woods among, 
And roll your rills symphonious to her song; 270 

Through fount-full dells, and wave-worn valleys move, 
And tune their echoing waterfalls to love ; 
Or catch, attentive to the distant roar, 
The pausing murmurs of the dashing shore ; 
Or as aloud she pours her liquid strain, 275 

Pursue the Nereid on the twilight main. 
— Her playful Sea-horse woos her soft commands, 
Turns his quick ears, his webbed claws expands, 
His watery way with waving volutes wins, 
Or listening librates on unmoving fins. 280 

The Nymph emerging mounts her scaly seat, 
Hangs o'er his glossy sides her silver feet, 
With snow-white hands her arching veil detains, 
Gives to his slimy lips the slacken'd reins, 
Lifts to the star of Eve her eye serene, 285 

And chaunts the birth of Beauty's radiant Queen.-— 
O'er her fair brow her pearly comb unfurls 
Her beryl locks, and parts the waving curls, 
Each tangled braid with glistening teeth unbinds, 
And with the floating treasure musks the winds. — . 290 



position of water, and thus represented it in their hieroglyphic figures before 
the invention of letters. 

In the passage of Virgil, Jupiter is called ether, and descends in prolific 
showers on the bosom of Juno, whence the spring succeeds, and all nature 
~ejoices. 

Turn pater omnipotens foecundis imbribus iEther 
Conjugis in gremium lxtK descendit, et omnes 
Magnus alit, magno commixtus corpore, foetus. 

Virg. Georg. Lib. II. 1. 335. 
Her playful Sea-horse. 1. 277. Described from an antique gem. 

Part I. O 



88 BOTANIC GARDI.N. Part h 

I'hrill'd l)v tin- dulcet accents, as she sings, 
The rippling wave in widening circles rings; 
Night's shadow v forms along the margin gleam 
With pointed ears, or dance upon the stream ; 
The Moon tr insported stays her hright career, 295 

And maddening Stars shoot headlong from the sphere. 

VIII. " Ntpnp/is ! whose fair eyes with vivid lustres glow 
For human weal, and melt at human woe ; 
Late as you floated on your silver shells, 
Sorrowing and slow by Derwent's willowy dells ; 
Where by tall groves his foamy flood he steers 
Through ponderous arches o'er impetuous wears, 
Bv Derby's shadowy towers reflective sweeps, 
And gothic grandeur chills his dusky deeps ; 
Ton pearl'd with Pity's drops his velvet sides, 305 

Sigh'd in his gales, and murmur'd in his tides, 
Waved o'er his fringed brink a deeper gloom, 
And bow'd his alders o'er Milcena's tomb. 

" Oft with sweet voice she led her infant-train, 
Printing with graceful step his spangled plain, 
Explored his twinkling swarms, that swim or fly, 
And mark'd his florets with botanic eye. — 
" Sweet bud of Spring! how frail thy transient bloom, 
" Fine film," she cried, " of Nature's fairest loom! 
" Soon Beauty fades upon its damask throne !"— 
—Unconscious of the worm, that mined her own !— 
— Pale are those lips, where soft caresses hung, 
Wan the warm cheek, and mute the tender tongue, 
Cold rests that feeling heart on DerWENT's shore, 
And those love-lighted eye-balls roll no more! 

" Here her sad Consort, stealing through the gloom 
Of murmuring cloysters, ga/.es on her tomb ; 
Hangs in mute anguish o'er the scutcheon'd hearse. 
Or graves with trembling style the votive verse. 

(A; , ; , men on o Mrs. French, a lad) who, to 

nuiu> other elegant accomplishments, added a yvoficiencj in botain and m 
timU hi 



Canto III. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 

" Sexton! oh, lay beneath this sacred shrine, 

" When Time's cold hand shall close my aching eyes, 

" Oh, gently lay this wearied earth of mine, 

" Where wrap'd in night my loved Milcena lies. 

" So shall with purer joy my spirit move 

" When the last trumpet thrills the caves of Death, 

" Catch the first whispers of my waking love, 
" And drink with holy kiss her kindling breath. 

" The spotless Fair, with blush ethereal warm, 
u Shall hail with sweeter smile returning day, 

" Rise from her marble bed a brighter form, 
" And win on buoyant step her airy way. 

" Shall bend approved, where beckoning hosts invite, 

" On clouds of silver, her adoring knee, 
" Approach with Seraphim the throne of light, 

" — And Beauty plead with angel-tongue for me I" 

IX. " Tour virgin trains on Brindley's cradle smiled, 
And nursed with fairy love the unletter'd child, 
Spread round his pillow all your secret spells, 
Pierced all your springs, and open'd all your wells.— 
As now on grass, with glossy folds reveal'd, 
Glides the bright serpent, now in flowers conceal'd; 
Far shine the scales, that gild his sinuous back, 
And lucid undulations mark his track ; 
So with strong arm immortal Brindley leads 
His long canals, and parts the velvet meads '; 
Winding in lucid lines, the watery mass 
Mines the firm rock, or loads the deep morass, 
With rising locks a thousand hills alarms, 
Flings o'er a thousand streams its silver arms, 



On Brindley's cradle smiled. 1. 341. The life of Mr, Brindley, whose great 
abilities in the construction of canal navigation were called forth by the pa- 
tronage of the Duke of Bridgewater, may be read in Dr. Kippis's Biographia 
Britannica : the excellence of his genius is visible in every part of this island. 
He died at Turnhurst, in Staffordshire, in 1772, and ought to have a rhonSj 
pent in the cathedral church at Lichfield. 



90 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

Feeds the long vale, the nodding woodland laves, 35S 

And Plenty, Arts and Commerce freight the waves. 

— Nymphs ! who erewhile round Brindley's early bier 

On snow-white bosoms shower'd the incessant tear, 

Adorn his tomb ! — oh, raise the marble bust, 

Proclaim his honours, and protect his dust ! 360 

With urns inverted, round the sacred shrine 

Their ozier wreaths let weeping Naiads twine ; 

While on the top Mechanic Genius stands, 

Counts the fleet waves, and balances the lands. 

X. " Nymphs ! you first taught to pierce the secret caves 
Of humid earth, and lift her ponderous waves ; 366 

Bade with quick stroke the sliding piston bear 
The viewless columns of incumbent air ;— 
Press'd by the incumbent air the floods below, 
Through opening valves in foaming torrents flow, 370 

Foot after foot with lessen'd impulse move, 
And rising seek the vacancy above.— 
So when the Mother, bending o'er his charms, 
Clasps her fair nurseling in delighted arms ; 
Throws the thin 'kerchief from her neck of snow, 375 

And half unveils the pearly orbs below ; 
With sparkling eye the blameless Plunderer owns 
Her soft embraces, and endearing tones, 
Seeks the salubrious fount with opening lips, 
Spreads his inquiring hands, and smiles, and sips. 380 



Lift her ponderous waves. 1. 366. The invention of the pump is of very an- 
ceint date, being ascribed to one Ctesebes, an Athenian, whence it was called 
by the Latins machina Ctesebiana ; but it was long before it was known that 
the ascent of the piston lifted the superincumbent column of the atmosphere, 
and that then the pressure of the surrounding air, on the surface of the well 
below, forced the water up into the vacuum, and that, on that account, in 
the common lifting pump the water would rise only about thirty-rive feet, 
as the weight of such a column of water was, in general, an equipoise to 
the surrounding atmosphere. The foamy appearance of water, when the 
pressure of the air over it is diminished, is owing to the expulsion and escape 
of the air previously dissolved by it, or existing in its pores. — When a child 
first sucks, it only presses or champs the teat, as observed by the great Har- 
vey, but afterwards it learns to make an incipient vacuum in its mouth, and 
acts, by removing the pressure of the atmosphere from the nipple, like a 
pump. 



Canto III. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 91 

" Connubial Fair '. whom no fond transport warms 
To lull your infant in maternal arms ; 
Who, bless'd in vain with tumid bosoms, hear 
His tender wailings with unfeeling ear ; 

The soothing kiss and milky rill deny 385 

To the sweet pouting lip, and glistening eye !— - 
Ah ! what avails the cradle's damask roof, 
The eider bolster, and embroider'd woof ! — 
Oft hears the gilded couch unpity'd plains, 
And many a tear the tassel'd cushion stains ! 390 

No voice so sweet attunes his cares to rest, 
So soft no pillow as his Mother's breast !— • 
— Thus charm'd to sweet repose, when twilight hours 
Shed their soft influence on celestial bowers, 
The Cherub, Innocence, with smile divine 395 

Shuts his white wings, and sleeps on Beauty's shrine. 

XI. " From dome to dome when flames infuriate climb, 
Sweep the long street, invest the tower sublime ; 
Gild the tall vanes amid the astonish'd night, 
And reddening heaven returns the sanguine light ; 400 

While with vast strides and bristling hair aloof 
Pale Danger glides along the falling roof; 
And Giant Terror, howling in amaze, 
Moves his dark limbs across the lurid blaze. 
Nymphs! you first taught the gelid wave to rise, 405 

Hurl'd in resplendent arches to the skies ; 

Ab t what avails. 1. 387. From an elegant little poem of Mr. Jerning- 
ham's, entitled II Latte, exhorting ladies to nurse their own children. 

Hurl'd in resplendent arches. 1. 486. The addition of an air-cell to ma- 
chines for raising water to extinguish fire was first introduced by Mr. News- 
ham, of London, and is. now applied to similar engines for washing wall- 
trees in gardens, and to all kinds of forcing pumps, and might be applied, 
with advantage, to lifting pumps, where the water is brought from a great 
distance horizontally. Another kind of machine was invented by one Greyl, 
in which a vessel of water was every way dispersed by the explosion of gun- 
powder lodged in the centre of it, and lighted by an adapted match ; from 
this idea Mr. Godfrey proposed a water-bomb of similar construction. Dr. 
Hales, to prevent the spreading of fire, proposed to cover the floors and stairs 
of the adjoining houses with earth : Mr. Hartley proposed to prevent houses 
from taking fire, by covering the cieling with thin iron plates ; and Lord 
Mahon, by a bed of coarse mortar, or plaster, between the cieling and floor 
above it. May not this age of chemical science discover some method of in- 



82 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

In iron cells condensed the airy spring, 

And imp'd the torrent with unfailing wing; 

— On the fierce (lames the shower impetuous falls, 

And sudden darkness shrouds the shattered walls ; 410 

Steam, smoke, and dust, in blended volumes roll, 

And Night and Silence repossess the Pole. — 

" Where were ye, Nymphs! in those disastrous hours, 
Which wrap'd in flames Augusta's sinking towers \ 
Why did ye linger in your wells and groves, 415 

When sad Woodmason mourn' d her infant loves ? 
When thy fair Daughters with unheeded screams, 
Ill-fated Molesworth ! call'd the loitering streams ! — 
The trembling Nymph, on bloodless fingers hung, 
Eyes from the tottering wall the distant throng, 420 

With ceaseless shrieks her sleeping friends alarms, 
Drops with singed hair into her lover's arms. — 
The illumined Mother seeks with footsteps fleet, 
Where hangs the safe balconv o'er the street ; 
Wrap'd in her sheet her youngest hope suspends, t - 1 - 

And panting lowers it to her tiptoe friends ; 
Again she hurries on Affection's wings, 
And now a third, and now a fourth, she brings ; 
Safe all her babes, she smooths her horrent brow, 
And bursts through bickering flames, unscorch'd, below. 430 
So, by her Son arraign'd, with feet unshod 
O'er burning bars indignant Emma trod. 

" E'en on the day when Youth with Beauty wed, 
The flames surprised them in their nuptial bed ; — 
Seen at the opening sash with bosom bare, 1 1 ! 

With wringing bands, and dark dishevel'd hair, 
The blushing Bride, with wild disorder'd charms, 
Round her fond lover a\ incls her ivory arms; 

jecting or soaking timber with lime-water, and afterwards with vitriolic 

acid, and thus till its pores w ith alabaster ! or of penetrating it with siliceotj 

bj processes similar to those of Bergman and A chard \ See CroB 

fd edit. vol. i p 

Woodtru - 1.416,418. The histories of these unfortunate 

familiea m ial Register, or in the GenUemai 



Canto III. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 93 

Beat, as they clasp, their throbbing hearts with fear, 

And many a kiss is mix'd with many a tear : — 440 

Ah me! in vain the labouring engines pour 

Round their pale limbs the ineffectual shower !— 

— Then crash' d the floor, while shrinking crowds retire, 

And Love and Virtue sunk amid the fire ! — 

With piercing screams afflicted strangers mourn, 445 

And their white ashes mingle in their urn. 

XII. " Pellucid Forms ! whose crvstal bosoms show 
The shine of welfare, or the shade of woe; 
Who with soft lips salute returning Spring, 
And hail the Zephyr quivering on his wing ; 450 

Or watch, untired, the wintery clouds, and share 
With streaming eyes my vegetable care ; 
Go, shove the dim mist from the mountain's brow, 
Chase the white fog, Which floods the vale below ; 
Melt the thick snows, that linger on the lands, 455 

And catch the hail-stones in your little hands ; 
Guard the cov blossom from the pelting shower, 
And dash the rimy spangles from the bower ; 
From each chill leaf the silvery drops repel, 
And close the timorous floret's golden bell. 460 

" So should young Sympathy, in female form, 
Climb the tall rock, spectatress of the storm ; 
Life's sinking wrecks with secret sighs deplore, 
And bleed for others' Avoes, herself on shore ; 

Shove the dim mist. 1. 453. See note on 1. 20 of this Canto. 

Catch the hail-stones. I. 456. See note on 1. 15 of this Canto. 

From each chill leuf. 1. 459. The upper side of the leaf is the organ of ve- 
getable respiration, as explained in the additional notes, No. XXXVII. hence 
the leaf is liable to injury from much moisture on this surface, and is destroyed 
by being smeared with oil, in these respects resembling the lungs of animals, 
or the spiracula of insects. To prevent these injuries, some leaves repel the 
dew-drops from their upper surfaces, as those of cabbages ; other vegecables 
close the upper surfaces of their leaves together in the night, or in wet wea- 
ther, as the sensitive plant ; others only hang their leaves downwards, so as 
to shoot the wet from them, as kidney-beans, and many trees. See note 
on 1. 18 of this Canto. 

Golden bell. 1. 460. There are muscles placed about the foot-stalks of the 
leaves or leaflets of many plants, for the purpose of closing their upper sur- 
■faceo together, or of bending them down so as to shoot off the showers or 



94 BOTANIC GAKDEN. Part I. 

To friendless Virtue, gasping on the strand, 465 

Pear her warm heart, her virgin arms expand, 

Charm with kind looks, with tender accents cheer, 

And pour the sweet consolatory tear; 

Griefs cureless wounds with lenient balms assuage, 

Or prop with firmer staff the steps of Age ; 470 

The lifted arm of mute Despair arrest, 

And snatch the dagger pointed at his breast ; 

Or lull to slumber Envy's haggard mien, 

And rob her quiver'd shafts with hand unseen. 

— Sound, Nymphs of Helicon ! the trump of Fame, 475 

And teach Hibernian echoes Jones's name ; 

Bind round her polish'd brow the civic bay, 

And drag the fair Philanthropist to day.— 

So from secluded springs, and secret caves, 

Her Liffy pours his bright meandering waves, 480 

Cools the parch'd vale, the sultry mead divides, 

And towns and temples star his shadowy sides. 

dew-drops, as mentioned in the preceding note. The claws of the petals, 
or of the divisions of the calyx of many flowers, are furnished in a similar 
manner with muscles, which are exerted to open or close the corol and calyx 
of the flower, as in tragopogon, anemone. This action of opening and 
closing the leaves or flowers does not appear to be produced simply by irrita- 
tion on the muscles themselves, but by the connection of those muscles with 
a sensitive sensorium, or brain, existing in each individual bud or flower. 
1st. Because many flowers close from the defect of stimulus, not by the ex- 
cess of it, as by darkness, which is the absence of the stimulus of light ; or 
by cold, which is the absence of the stimulus of heat. Now, the defect of 
heat, or the absence of food, or of drink, affects our sensations, which had 
been previously accustomed to a greater quantity of them ; but a muscle can- 
not be said to be stimulated into action by a defect of stimulus. 2d. Because 
the muscles around the foot-stalks of the subdivisions of the leaves of the 
sensitive plant are exerted when any injury is offered to the other extremity 
of the leaf, and some of the stamens of the flowers of the class Syngenesis, 
contract themselves when others are irritated. See note on Chondrilla, vol. 
ii. of this work. 

From this circumstance, the contraction of the muscles of vegetables seem6 
to depend on a disagreeable sensation in some distant part, and not on the 
irritation of the muscles themselves. Thus, when a particle of dust stimu- 
lates the ball of the eye, the eye-lids are instantly closed, and when too much 
light pains the retina, the muscles of the iris contract its aperture, and thic 
not by any connection or consent of the nerves of those parts, but as an ef- 
fort to prevent or to remove a disagreeable sensation, which evinces that 
vegetables are endued with sensation, or that each bud has a common senso- 
liiini, and is furnished with a brain, or a central place where its v.. 
catuuu ted. 

Jones's name. 1. 476. A young lady who devote--, a great 
.iity. 



-CastoIII. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 95 

XIII. " Call your light legions, tread the swampy heath, 
Pierce with sharp spades the tremulous peat beneath ; 
With colters bright the rushy sward bisect, 485 

And in new veins the gushing rills direct: — 
So flowers shall rise in purple light arrav'd, 
And blossom'd orchards stretch their silver shade ; 
Admiring glebes their amber ears unfold, 
And Labour sleep amid the waving gold* 4-90 

" Thus when young Hercules, with firm disdain, 
Braved the soft smiles of Pleasure's harlot train ; 
To valiant toils his forceful limbs assign'd, 
And gave to Virtue all his mighty mind; 
Fierce Achelous rush'd from mountain-caves, 495 

O'er sad Etolia pour'd his wasteful waves, 
O'er lowing vales and bleating pastures roll'd* 
Swept her red vineyards, and her glebes of gold, 
Mined all her towns, uptore her rooted woods, 
And Famine danced upon the shining floods. 50Q 

The youthful Hero seized his curled crest, 
And dash'd with lifted club the watery Pest; 
With waving arm the billowy tumult quell'd, 
And to his course the bellowing Fiend repell'd. 

" Then to a Snake the finny Demon turn'd, 505 

His lengthen'd form with scales of silver burn'd ; 
Lash'd with resistless sweep his dragon-train, 
And shot meandering o'er the affrighted plain. 
The Hero-God, with giant fingers clasp'd 
Firm round his neck, the hissing monster grasp'd ; 510 

With starting eyes, wide throat, and gaping teeth, 
Curl his redundant folds, and writhe in death. 



Fierce Achelous. 1. 495. The river Achelous deluged Etolia, by one of its 
branches or arms, which, in the ancient languages, are called horns, and 
produced famine throughout a great tract of country : this was represented 
in hieroglyphic emblems, by the winding course of a serpent, and the roar- 
ing of a bull with large horns. Hercules, or the emblem of strength,, 
strangled the serpent, and tore oif one horn from the bull ; that is, he stop- 
ped, and turned the course of one arm of the river, and restored plenty to 
the country. Whence the ancient emblem of the horn of plenty. Diet, par 
M. Danet. 

Part I. P 



96 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

M And now a Hull, amid the flying throng 
Tin- gristly Demon foam'd, and roar'd along; 
With silver hoofs the flowery meadows spurn'd, 515 

RolPd his red eye, his threatening antlers turn'd ; 
Drngg'd down to earth the Warrior's \ ictor-hands, 
Press'd his deep dewlap on the imprinted sands ; 
Then with quick bound his bended knee he fix'd 
High on his neck, the branching horns betwixt, 520 

Strain'd his strong arms, his sinewy shoulders bent, 
And from his curled brow the twisted terror rent. 
— Pleased Fawns and Nymphs with dancing step applaud, 
And hang their chaplets round the resting God ; 
Link their soft hands, and rear, with pausing toil, 525 

The golden trophy on the furrow'd soil ; 
Fill with ripe fruits, with wreathed flowers adom, 
And give to Plenty her prolific horn. 

XIV. " On Spring's fair lip, cerulean Slaters! pour 
From airy urns the sun-illumined shower, 530 

Feed with the dulcet drops my tender broods, 
Mellifluous flowers, and aromatic buds ; 
Hang from each bending grass and horrent thorn 
The tremulous pearl, that glitters to the morn ; 
Or where cold dews their secret channels lave, 535- 

And Earth's dark chambers hide the stagnant wave, 
Oh pierce, ye Nymphs! her marble veins, and lead 
Her gushing fountains to the thirsty mead ; 
Wide o'er the shining vales, and trickling hills 
Spread the bright treasure in a thousand rills. j'40 

Dragg'd dawn to earth. 1. 517. Described from an antique gem. 

Spread the bright treasure. 1. 540. The practice of flooding lands, long in 
use in China, has been but lately introduced into this country. Besides the 
supplying water to the herbage in drier seasons, it seems to defend it from 
frost in the early part of the year, and thus doubly advances the vegetation. 
The waters which rise from springs passing through marie or lime-stone, are 
replete with calcareous earth, ami when thrown over morasses, they deposit 
this earth, and incrust or consolidate the morass. This kind of earth is de- 
posited in gnat quantity from the springs at Matlock bath, and supplies the 
soft porous lime-stone of which the houses ami walls are there constructed; 
and has formed the whole bank, for near a mile, on that side of the Derwenj 
on which the) Maud. 

The water of many springs contain-, much azotic gas, or phlogistic air, 
acsides carbonic gas, or fixed air, as that of Bu.\ton and Bath; this being 



Canto III. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION, 

So shall my peopled realms of Leaf and Flower 
Exult, inebriate with the genial shower; 
Dip their long tresses from the mossy brink, 
With tufted roots the glassy currents drink ; 
Shade your cool mansions from meridian beams, 
And view their waving honours in your streams. 

" Thus where the veins their confluent branches bend, 
And milky eddies with the purple blend ; 
The Chyle's white trunk, diverging from its source, 
Seeks through the vital mass its shining course ; 
O'er each red cell, and tissued membrane spreads, 
In living net-work, all its branching threads ; 
Maze within maze its tortuous path pursues, 
Winds into glands, inextricable clues; 
Steals through the stomach's velvet sides, and sips 
The silver surges with a thousand lips ; 
Fills each fine pore, pervades each slender hair, 
And drinks salubrious dew-drops from the air. 

" Thus when to kneel in Mecca's awful gloom. 
Or press with pious kiss Medina's tomb, 
League after league, through many a lingering day, 
Steer the swart Caravans their sultry way; 
O'er sandy wastes on gasping camels toil, 
Or print with pilgrim-steps the burning soil ; 
If from lone rocks a sparkling rill descend, 
O'er the green brink the kneeling nations bend, 
Bathe the parch'd lip, and cool the feverish tongue, 
And the clear lake reflects the mingled throng," 



set at liberty, may more readily contribute to the production of nitre by 
means of the putrescent matters which it is exposed to by being spread upon 
the surface of the land, in the same manner as frequently turning over heaps 
of manure facilitates the nitrous process, by imprisoning atmospheric air in 
the interstices of the putrescent materials. Water, arising by land-floods, 
brings along with it much of the most soluble parts of the manure from the 
higher lands to the lower ones. River-water, in its clear state, and those 
springs which are called soft, are less beneficial for the purpose of watering 
lands, as they contain less earthy or saline matter ; and water from dissolv- 
ing snow, from its slow solution, brings but little earth along with it, as may 
be seen by the comparative clearness of the water of snow-Hoods. 



93 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

The Goddess paused, — the listening bands awhile 
Still seem to hear, and dwell upon her smile ; 570 

Then with soft murmur sweep in lucid trains 
Down the green slopes, and o'er the pebbly plains, 
To each bright stream on silver sandals glide, 
Reflective fountain, and tumultuous tide. 

So shoot the Spider-broods at breezy dawn, sVS 

Their glittering net-work o'er the autumnal lawn , 
From blade to blade connect with cordage fine 
The unbending grass, and live along the line ; 
Or bathe unwet their oily forms, and dwell 
With feet repulsive on the dimpling well. 580 

So when the North congeals his watery mass, 
Piles high his snows, and floors his seas with glass ; 
While many a Month, unknown to warmer rajs, 
Marks its slow chronicle by lunar davs ; 

Stout youths and ruddy damsels, sportive train, 53i 

Leave the white soil, and rush upon the main ; 
From isle to isle the moon-bright squadrons stray, 
And win in easy curves their graceful way ; 
On step alternate borne, with balance nice, 
Hang o'er the gliding steel, and hiss along the ice. 590 



THE 

ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 
CANTO IV. 



ARGUMENT 



FOURTH CANTO 



Address to the Sylphs. I. Trade winds. Monsoons. N. E. and S. W. 
■winds. Land and sea breezes. Irregular winds, 9. II. Production of 
vital air from oxygene and light. The marriage of Cupid and Psyche, 
25. III. 1. Syroc. Simoom. Tornado, 63. 2. Fog. Contagion. 
Story of Thyrsis and Aegle. Love and Death, 79. IV. 1. Barome- 
ter. Air-pump, 127- 2. Air-balloon of Mongolfier. Death of Rozier. 
Icarus, 143. V. Discoveries of Dr. Priestley. Evolutions and combi- 
nations of pure air. Rape of Proserpine, 177. VI. Sea-balloons, or 
houses constructed to move under the sea. Death of Mr. Day ; of Mr. 
Spalding; of Captain Pierce and his Daughters, 207. VII. Sylphs of 
music. Cecilia singing. Cupid, with a lyre, riding upon a lion, 245. 
VIII. Destruction of Senacherib's army by a pestilential wind. Shadow 
of Death, 275. IX. 1. Wish to possess the secret of changing the 
course of the winds, 317. 2. Monster devouring air subdued by Mr. Kir- 
wan, 333 X. 1. Seeds suspended in their pods. Stars discovered by 
Mr. Herschel. Destruction and resuscitation of all things, 363. 2. Seeds 
within seeds, and bulbs within bulbs. Picture on the retina of the eye. 
Concentric strata of the earth. The great seed, 393. 3. The root, 
pith, lobes, plume, calyx, coral, sap, blood, leaves respire and absorb 
light. The Crocodile in its egg, 421. XI. Opening of the flower. The 
petals, style, anthers, prolific dust, honey-cup. Transmutation of the 
cilk-worm, 453. XII. 1. Leaf-buds changed into flower-buds by wound- 
ing the bark, or strangulating a part of the branch. Cintra, 477. 2. 
Ingrafting. Aaron's rod pullulates, 507. XIII. 1. Insects on trees. 
Humming-bird alarmed by the spider-like appearance of Cvprepedia, 
521. 2. Diseases of vegetables. Scratch on unnealed glass, 541. XIV. 
1. Tender flowers. Amaryllis, fritillary, ciythrina, mimosa, cerca, 553 
"2. Vines. Oranges. Diana's trees. Kcw garden. The royal family, 
571. XV. Offering to Hygeia, 617. Departure of the Goddess, 659 



BOTANIC GARDEN. 



ECONOMY OF VEGETATION, 



CANTO IV. 

x\.S when at noon in Hybla's fragrant bowers 

Cacalia opens all her honey 'd flowers; 

Contending swarms on bending branches cling, 

And nations hover on aurelian wing ; 

So round the Goddess, ere she speaks, on high $ 

Impatient Sylphs in gaudy circlets fly ; 

Quivering in air their painted plumes expand, 

And colour'd shadows dance upon the land. 

I. " Sylphs ! your light troops the tropic Winds confine, 
And guide their streaming arrows to the Line ; 10 

While in warm floods ecliptic Breezes rise, 
And sink with wings benumb'd in colder skies. 
Tou bid Monsoons on Indian seas reside, 
And veer, as moves the sun, their airy tide ; 
While southern Gales o'er western oceans roll, 15 

And Eurus steals his ice-winds from the Pole. 



Cacalia opens. 1. 2. The importance of the nectarium, or honey-gland, in 
the vegetable economy, is seen from the very complicated apparatus which 
nature has formed in some flowers, for the preservation of their honey from 
insects, as in the aconites or monkshoods ; in other plants, instead of a great 
apparatus for its protection, a greater secretion of it is produced, that thence 
a part may be spared to the depredation of insects. The cacalia suaveolens 
produces so much honey, that, on some days, it may be smelt at a great dis- 
tance from the plant. I remember once counting on one of these plants, 
besides bees of various kinds without number, above two hundred painted 
but'erflies, which gave it the beautiful appearance of being covered with ad- 
ditional flowers. 

The tropic Winds. 1, 9. See additional notes, No. XXXIII. 



Kg BOTANIC GARDEN Part I 

four playful trains, on sultry islands born, 
Turn on fantastic toe at eve and morn ; 
With soft susurranr voice alternate sweep 
Earth's green pavilions and encircling deep. 
Or in itinerant cohorts, borne sublime 
On tides of ether, float from clime to clime; 
O'er waving Autumn bend your airv ring, 
Or waft the fragrant bosom of the Spring. 

II. " When Morn, escorted by the dancing Hours, 26 

O'er the bright plains her dewy lustre showers; 
Till from her sable chariot Eve serene 
Drops the dark curtain o'er the brilliant scene ; 
You form with chemic hands the airy surge, 
.Mix with broad vans, with shadowy tridents urge. 30 

Sylphs .' from each sun-bright leaf, that twinkling shakes 
O'er Earth's green lap, or shoots amid her lakes, 
Your pla\-ful bands with simpering lips invite, 
And wed the enamour'd Oxygen e to Light. — 
Round their white necks with fingers interwove, 35 

Cling the fond Pair with unabating love ; 

The enamour'd Oxygene. 1. 34. The common air of the atmosphere ap- 
pears, by the analysis of Dr. Priestley, and other philosophers, to consist of 
about three parts of an elastic fluid, unfit for respiration or combustion, called 
azote by the French school, and about one fourth of pure vital air, fit for 
the support of animal life and of combustion, called oxygene. The princi- 
pal source of the azote is probably from the decomposition of all vegetable 
and animal matters, by putrefaction and combustion : the principal source of 
vital air, or oxygene, is, perhaps, from the decomposition of water in the 
organs of vegetables, by means of the sun's light. The difficulty of injecting 
vegetable vessels seems to show, that their perspirative pores are much less 
than those of animals, and that the water which constitutes their perspiration 
is so divided at the time of its exclusion, that, by means of the sun's light, 
it becomes decomposed; the inflammable air, or hydrogene, which is one of 
its constituent parts, being retained to form the oil, resin, wax, honey, &c. 
of the vegetable economy ; and the other part, which, united with light or 
heat, becomes vital air, or oxygene gas, rises into the atmosphere, and re- 
plenishes it with the food of life. 

Dr. Priestley 1ms evinced, by very ingenious experiments, that the blood 
gives out phlogiston, and receives vital air, or oxygene gas, b) the lungs. 
And Dr. Crawford has shown, that the blood acquires heat from this vital 
ail in - ;piration There is, however, still a something more subfile than 
heat, which must be obtained in respiration from the vital air; a something 
which life cannot exist a few minutes without, which seem, necessary to the 
.. v. ell as to the animal world, and which, as no • 

can confin srpctuallv to l>e renewed Canto J I 

401. andaddii onal — . No. XXXIV. 



Canto IV. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 103 

Hand link'd in hand on buoyant step they rise, 

And soar and glisten in unclouded skies. 

Whence in bright floods the Vital Air expands, 

And with concentric spheres involves the lands ; 40 

Pervades the swarming seas, and heaving earths, 

Where teeming Nature broods her mvriad births ; 

Fills the fine lungs of all that breathe or bud, 

Warms the new heart, and dyes the gushing blood ; 

With Life's first spark inspires the organic frame, 45 

And, as it wastes, renews the subtile flame. 

" So pure, so soft, with sweet attraction shone 
Fair Psyche, kneeling at the ethereal throne ; 
Won with coy smiles the admiring court of Jove, 
And warm'd the bosom of unconquer'd Love.—" 50 

Beneath a moving shade of fruits and flowers 
Onward they march to Hymen's sacred bowers ; 
With lifted torch he lights the festive train, 
Sublime, and leads them in his golden chain ; 
Joins the fond pair, indulgent to their vows, 55 

And hides with mystic veil their blushing brows. 
Round their fair forms their mingling arms they fling, 
Meet with warm lip, and clasp with rustling wing.— 
— Hence plastic Nature, as Oblivion whelms 
Her fading forms, repeoples all her realms ; 60 

Soft Joys disport on purple plumes unfurl'd, 
And Love and Beauty rule the willing world. 

III. 1. " Sylphs ! your bold myriads on the withering heath 
Stay the fell Syroc's suffocative breath ; 

Arrest Simoom in his realms of sand, 65 

The poison'd javelin balanced in his hand ; — > 

Fair Psyche. 1. 48. Described from an ancient gem, on a fine onyx, in 

possession of the Duke of Marlborough, of which there is a beautiful print 

in Bryant's Mythol. vol. ii. p. 392. And from another ancient gem of Cupid 

and Psyche embracing, of which there is a print in Spence's Polymetis, p. 82. 

Repeoples all her realms. 1. 60. 

Qux mare navigerum et terras firagiferentes 
Concelebras ; per te quoniam genus omne animantum 
Concipitur, visitque exortum lumina solis. Lucret. 

Arrest Simoom. 1. 65. " At eleven o'clock, while we were, with great 

Part I. Q 



lOt BOTANIC GARDE.V Pa*I I 

Fierce on blue streams he rides the tainted air, 

Points his keen eve, and waves his whistling hair: 

While, as he turns, the undulating soil 

Rolls in red waves, and billowy deserts boil. 70 

You seize Tornado by his locks of mist, 

Burst hi* dense clouds, his wheeling spires untwist; 

Wide o'er the West, when borne on headlong g 

Dark as meridian night, the Monster sails, 

Howls high in air, and shakes his curled brow, 78 

Lashing with serpent -train the waves below, 

pleasure, contemplating the rugged tops of Chiggre, where we expected to 
olace ourselves with plenty of good water, Idris cried out, with a loud voice, 
■ Fall upon your faces, for here is the simoom !' I saw from the S. E. a haze 
>:ome in colour like the purple part of a rainbow, but not so compressed or 
thick; it did not occupy twenty yards in breadth, and was about twelve feet 
high from the ground. It was a kind of a blush upon the air, and it moved 
very rapidly, for I scarce could turn to fall upon the ground, with my head 
to the northward, when I felt the heat of its current plainly upon my face. 
We all lay flat upon the ground, as if dead, till Idris told us it ivas blown 
over. The meteor, or purple haze which I saw, was indeed passed, but the 
light air that still blew, was of heat to threaten suffocation. For my part, 
I found distinctly in my breast, that I hud imbibed a part of it ; nor was I 
free of an asthmatic sensation till I had been some months in Italy." Druce's 
Travels, vol. iv. p. 557. 

It is difficult to account for the narrow track of this pestilential wind, 
which is 3aid not to exceed twenty yards, and for its small elevation of 
twelve feet. A whirlwind will pass forwards, and throw down an avenue 
of trees, by its quick revolution, as it passes ; but nothing like a whirlwind 
is described as happening in these narrow streams of air, and whirlwinds as- 
cend to greater heights There seems but one known manner in which this 
channel of air could be effected, and that is by electricity. 

The volcanic origin of these winds is mentioned in the note on Chunda, 
in vol. ii. of this work : it must here be added, that Professor Vairo, at Na- 
ples, found, that during the eruption of Vesuvius, perpendicular iron bars 
were electric ; and others have observed suffocating damps to attend these 
eruptions. Ferber's Travels in Italy, p. 133. And, lastly, that a current of 
air attends the passage of electric matter, as is seen in presenting an elec- 
trized point to the. flame of a candle. In Mr. Bruce's account of this si- 
moom, it was in its course over a quite dry desert of sand (and which was, 
in consequence, unable to conduct an electric stream ir.to the earth beneath 
it), to some moist rocks at but a few miles distance, and thence would ap- 
pear to be a stream of electricity from a volcano, attended with noxious air : 
and as the bodies of Mr. Bruce and his attendants were insulated on the 
-and, they would not be sensihle of their increased electricity, as it passed 
ovef them ; to which it may be added, that a sulphurous or suffocating sen- 
ad in accompany flashes of lightning, and even strong sparks of 
artificial electricity. In the above account of the simoom, a great redness in 
the hi i Baid to be a certain sign of its approach, which ma\ be occasioned 
rom a distant volcano in these extensive and irope 
netrable deserts of band. Sec note on 1. 292 of this Canto, 
I. See additional notes, No. XX XIII 



CantoIV. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION, 105 

Whirls his black arm, the forked lightning flings, 
And showers a deluge from his demon-wings. 

2. " Sylphs! with light shafts you pierce the drowsy Fog, 
That lingering slumbers on the sedge-wove bog, 80 

With webbed feet o'er midnight meadows creeps, 
Or flings his haiiy limbs on stagnant deeps. 
You meet Contagion issuing from afar, 
And dash the baleful conqueror from his car ; 
When Guest of Death ! from charnel vaults he steals., 85 

And bathes in human gore his armed wheels- 

" Thus when the Plague, upborne on Belgian air, 
Look'd through the mist, and shook his clotted hair ; 
O'er shrinking nations steer'd malignant clouds, 
And rain'd destruction on the gasping crowds. 9.0 

The beauteous tEgle felt the venom'd dart, 
Slow roll'd her eye, and feebly throbb'd her heart ; 
Each fervid sigh seem'd shorter than the last, 
And starting Friendship shunn'd her as she pass'cL 
— With weak unsteady step the fainting Maid 9$ 

Seeks the cold garden's solitary shade, 
Sinks on the pillowy moss her drooping head, 
And prints with lifeless limbs her leafy bed. 
— On wings of Love her plighted Swain pursues, 
Shades her from winds, and shelters her from clews, 100 

Extends on tapering poles the canvass roof, 
Spreads o'er the straw-wove mat the flaxen woof, 
Sweet buds and blossoms on her bolster strows, 
And binds his 'kerchief round her aching brows j 



On stagnant deeps. 1. 82. All contagious miasmata originate either from 
animal bodies, as those of the small-pox, or from putrid morasses; these 
latter produce agues in the colder climates, and malignant fevers in the 
warmer ones. The volcanic vapours which cause epidemic Coughs are to be 
ranked amongst poisons, rather than amongst the miasmata, which produce 
contagious diseases. 

The beauteous JEgie. 1. 91. When the plague raged in Holland, in 1636, 
a young girl was seized with it, had three carbuncles, and was removed to a 
garden, where her lover, who was betrothed to her, attended her as a nurse, 
and slept with her as his wife. He remained uninfected, and she recovered, 
and was married to him. The storv is related by Vine. Fabricius, in th* 
Misc. Cur. Ann. II. Obs. 188. 



loG BOTANIC GARDEN. Pari I. 

Sooths with soft kiss, with tender accents charms, 105 

Anil clasps the- bright infection in his arms. — 

With pale and languid smiles the grateful Fair 

Applauds his virtues, and rewards his care; 

Mourns with wet cheek her fair companions fled 

On timorous step, or numbered with the dead; 1 10 

Calls to her bosom all its scatter'd rays, 

And pours on Tiiyrsis die collected blaze; 

Braves the chill night, caressing and caress'd, 

And folds her Hero-lover to her breast. — 

Less bold, Leander, at the dusky hour 115 

Eyed, as he swam, the far love -lighted tower ; 

Breasted with struggling arms the tossing wave, 

And sunk benighted in the watery grave. 

Less bold Tobias claim'd the nuptial bed 

Where seven fond Lovers by a Fiend had bled ; 120 

And drove, instructed by his Angel-Guide, 

The enamour'd Demon from the fatal bride. — 

— Sylphs ! while your winnowing pinions fann'd the air, 

And shed gay visions o'er the sleeping pair ; 

Love round their couch effused his rosy breath, 125 

And with his keener arrows conquer'd Death. 

IV. 1. " You charnVd, indulgent Sylphs i their learned toil. 
And crown'd with fame your Torricell and Boyle ; 



Torricell and Boyle. 1. 128. The pressure of the atmosphere was discovered 
by Torricelli, a disciple of Galileo, who had previously found that the air 
had weight. Dr. Hook, and M. du Hamel, ascribe the invention of the air- 
pump to Mr. Boyle, who, however, confesses he had some hints concerning 
its construction from de Guerick. The vacancy at the summit of the haro- 
ineter is termed the Torricellian vacumn, find the exhausted receiver of an 
air-pump, the Boylean vacuum, in honour of these two philosophers. 

The mist and descending dew which appear at first exhausting the receiver 
of an air-pump, are explained in the Phil. Trans, vol l.wviii. from 
produced by the expansion of air. For a thermometer placed in tlu 
sinks some degrees; and in a very little time, as soon as a sullicient quantity 
of heal can be acquired from the surrounding bodies, the dew becomes again 

taken up. See additional note:, No. VII. Mr. Saussure observed, en plac- 
jrometer in a receiver of an air-pump, that thought on beginning 

■ it, tin.- air became misty, and parted with its moisture. \ei tlu 

hair of Ins hygrometer contracted, and the instrument pointed to greater dr> - 

i. unexpected occurrence is explained b \nnalesde 

Chimie, torn, v.) to depend on the want of the usual pressure of the atnos- 

aqucous particles into the pores of the hair ; and Mr. Saus- 



Canto IV. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 10 

Taught with sweet smiles, responsive to their prayer. 

The spring and pressure of the viewless air. 13< 

— How up exhausted tubes bright currents flow 

Of liquid silver from the lake below, 

Weigh the long column of the incumbent skies, 

And with the changeful moment fall and rise. 

— How, as in brazen pumps the pistons move, 13 

The membrane-valve sustains the weight above ; 

Stroke follows stroke, the gelid vapour falls, 

And misty dew-drops dim the crystal walls ; 

Rare and more rare expands the fluid thin, 

And Silence dwells with Vacancy within.— 14 

So in the mighty Void with grim delight 

Primeval Silence reign'd with ancient Night. 

2. " Sylphs ! your soft voices, whispering from the skies, 
Bade from low earth the bold Mongolfier rise ; 
Outstretch'd his buoyant ball with airy spring, 14 

And bore the Sage on levity of wing ; — 
Where were ye, Sylphs ! when on the ethereal main 
Young Rosiere launch'd, and call'd your aid in vain ? 
Fair mounts the light balloon, by Zephyr driven, 
Parts the thin clouds, and sails along the heaven ; 15 



sure supposes, that his vesicular vapour requires more time to be re-dissolved 
than is necessary to dry the hair of his thermometer. Essais sur 1'Hygrom. 
p. 226. But I suspect there is a less hypothetical way of understanding it : 
when a colder body is brought into warm and moist air (as a bottle of spring- 
water, for instance), a steam is quickly collected on its surface : the contrary 
occurs when a warmer body is brought into cold and damp air ; it continues 
free from dew so long as it continues warm ; for it warms the atmosphere 
around it, and renders it capable of receiving, instead of parting with mois- 
ture. The moment the air becomes rarefied in the receiver of the air-pump, 
it becomes colder, as appears by the thermometer, and deposits its vapour ; 
but the hair of Mr. Saussure's hygrometer is now warmer than the air in 
which it is immersed, and, in consequence, becomes dryer than before, by 
warming the air which immediately surrounds it, a part of its moisture eva- 
porating along with its heat. 

Toung Rosiere tauneb'd. 1. 148. M. Pilatre du R.osicre, with a M. Romain. 
rose in a balloon from Boulogne, in June, 1785, and after having been about 
a mile high for about half an hour, the balloon took fire, and the two adven- 
turers were dashed to pieces on their fall to the ground. M. Rosiere was a 
philosopher of great talents and activity, joined with such urbanity and ele- 
gance of manners, as conciliated the affections of his acquaintance, and ren- 
dered his misfc-rume universally lamented. Annual Register for 1784 and 
1785, p. 329. 



i08 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I 

Higher and yet higher the expanding bubble flies, 

Lights with quick flush, and bursts amid the skies.— 

lit ;u Hong he rushes through the affrighted Air 

With limbs distorted, and dishevel' d hair, 

Whirls round and round, the flying crowd alarms, 15o 

And Death receives him in his sable arms ! 

— Betrothed Beauty, bending o'er his bier, 

Breathes the loud sob, and sheds the incessant tear ; 

Pursues the sad procession, as it moves 

Through winding avenues and waving groves ; 16G 

Hears the slow dirge amid the echoing aisles, 

And mingles with her sighs discordant smiles. 

Then with quick step advancing through the gloom, 

" I come !" she cries, and leaps into his tomb. 

" Oh, stay ! I follow thee to realms above ! — 1 6 j 

" Oh, wait a moment for thy dving love ! — ■ 

" Thus, thus I clasp thee to my bursting heart ! — 

u Close o'er us, holy Earth ! — We will not part !" — 

So erst with melting wax and loosen'd strings 

Sunk hapless Icarus on unfaithful wings ; 170 

His scatter'd plumage danced upon the wave, 

And sorrowing Mermaids deck'd his watery grave ; 

O'er his pale corse their pearly sea-flowers shed, 

And strew'd with crimson moss his marble bed ; 

Struck in their coral towers the pausing bell, :7a 

And wide in ocean toll'd his echoing knell. 

Betrothed Beauty. 1. 157. Miss Susan Dyer was engaged, in a. few days, 
to many M. Rosiere, who had promised to quit such dangerous experiment;, 
in future : — she was spectatress of this sud accident, lingered some months, 
and died from excess of grief. The Rev. Mr. Collier, Senior Fellow of Tri- 
nity College, in Cambridge, was well acquainted with this amiable young 
lady, and suggested the introduction of her melancholy history in this place. 

And Viide in ocean. 1. 176. Denser bodies propagate vibration or sound 
better than rarer ones ; if two stones be struck together under the water, they 
may be heard a mile or two by any one whose head is immersed at that dis- 
tance, according to an experiment of Dr. Franklin. If the car be applied to 
one end of a long beam of timber, the stroke of a pin at the other end be- 
comes sensible; if a poker be suspended in the middle of a garter, each end 
of wh'u-h r. pressed .i",:t',nst the ear, the least percussions on the poker give 
great Bounds. And, 1 am informed, by laying the ear on the ground, the 
tread of a horse may he discerned at a great distance in the night. The 
organs of hearing belonging to fish, are for this reason much less complicated 
than of quadrupeds, a;, the fluid they are immersed insomuch better con- 
izations. And, it is probable, that some shellifish which hs*Q 



Canto IV. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 105 

V. " Sylphs ! you, retiring to sequester'd bowers, 
Where oft your Priestley woos your air}' powers, 
On noiseless step or quivering pinion glide, 
As sits the Sage with Science by his side ; 1 80 

To his charm'd eye in gay undress appear, 
Or pour your secrets on his raptured ear. 
How nitrous Gas, from iron ingots driven, 
Drinks with red lips the purest breath of heaven ; 
How, while Conferva, from its tender hair, 1 85 

Gives in bright bubbles empp-ean air, 

twisted shells, like the cochlea, and semicircular canals of the ears of men: 
and quadrupeds, may have no appropriated organ for perceiving the vibrations 
of the element they live in, but may, by their spiral form, be, in a manner 
all ear. 

Where oft your Priestley . 1. 178. The fame of Dr. Priestley is known in 
e^lry part of the earth where science has penetrated. His various discove- 
ries respecting the analysis of the atmosphere, and the production of variety 
of new airs or gasses, can only be clearly understood by reading his Experi- 
ments on Airs, (3 vols, octavo. Johnson. Lond.) The following are amongst 
his many discoveries. 1. The discovery of nitrous and dephlogisticated airs. 
2. The exhibition of the acids and alkalies in the form of air. 3. Ascer- 
taining the purity of respirable air by nitrous air. 4. The restoration of 
vitiated air by vegetation. 5. The influence of light to enable vegetables to 
yield pure air. 6. The conversion, by means of light, of animal and veget- 
able substances, that would otherwise become putrid and offensive, into nou- 
rishment of vegetables. 7. The use of respiration by the blood parting with 
phlogiston and imbibing dephlogisticated air. 

The experiments here alluded to are, 1. Concerning the production ol 
nitrous gas from dissolving iron, and many other metals in nitrous acid 5 
which, though first discovered by Dr. Hales (Static. Ess. vol. i. p. 224), 
was fully investigated, and applied to the important purpose of distinguishing 
the purity of atmospheric air by Dr. Priestley. When about two measures of 
common air, and one of nitrous gas, are mixed together, a red effervescence 
takes place, and the two airs occupy about one fourth less space than was 
previously occupied by the common air alone. 

2. Concerning the green substance which grows at the bottom of reser- 
voirs of water, which Dr. Priestley discovered to yield much pure air when 
the sun shone on it. His method of collecting this air is by placing over the 
green substance, which he believes to be a vegetable of the genus conferva,, 
an inverted bell-glass previously filled with water, which subsides as the air 
arises : it has since been found that all vegetabks give up pure air from their 
leaves, when the sun shines upon them, but not in the night, which may be 
owing to the sleep of the plant. 

3. The third refers to the great quantity of pure air contained in the calces 
of metals. The calces were long known to weigh much more than the 
metallic bodies before calcination, insomuch that 100 pounds of lead will pro- 
duce 112 pounds of minium ; the ore of manganese, which is always found 
near the surface of the earth, is replete with pure air, which is now used for 
Hie purpose of bleaching. Other metals, when exposed to the atmosphere,, 
attract the pure air from it, and become calces by its combination, as zinc 
\ead , iron ; and increase in weight in proportion to the air whirh they imbibe. 



no BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

The crystal floods phlogistic ores calcine, 
And the pure Ether marries with die Mini . 

" So in Sicilians ever-blooming shade, 
When playful Proserpine from Ceres stray 'd, 190 

Led with unwary step her virgin trains 

OVr Etna's steeps, and Enna's golden plains ; 

Pluck'd with fair hand the silver-blossonTd bower, 

And purpled mead, — herself a fairer flower ; 

Sudden, unseen amid the twilight glade, 195 

Rush'd gloomy Dis, and seized the trembling maid. — 

Her starting damsels sprung from mossy seats, 

DrOpp'd from their gauzy laps the gather'd sweets, 

Clung round the struggling Nymph, with piercing cries, 

Pursued the chariot, and invok'd the skies ; — 200 

Pleased as he grasps her in his iron arms, 

Frights with soft sighs, with tender words alarms, 

The wheels descending roll'd in smoky rings, 

Infernal Cupids flappM their demon wings ; 

Earth with deep yawn received the Fair, amazed, 205 

And far in Night celestial Beauty blazed. 

VI. " Led by the Sage, lo ! Britain's sons shall guide 
Huge Sea-Balloo7is beneath the tossing tide ; 

When playful Proserpine. 1. 190. The fable of Proserpine's being seized by 
Pluto as she was gathering flowers, is explained by Lord Bacon to signify the 
combination or marriage of ethereal spirit with earthly materials. Bacon's 
Works, vol. v. p. 470. edit. 4to. Lond. 1778. This allusion is still more curi- 
ously exact, from the late discovery of pure air being given up from vegeta- 
bles, and that then, in its unmixed state, it more readily combines with me- 
tallic or inflammable bodies. From these fables, which were probably taken 
from ancient hieroglyphics, there is frequently reason to believe, that the 
Egyptians possessed much chemical knowledge, which, for want of alpha- 
betical writing, perished with their philosophers. 

Led by the Sage. 1. 207. Dr. Priestley's discovery of the production of 
pine air from such variety of substances will probably soon be applied to 
the improvement of the diving-bell, as the substances which contain vital 
air in immense quantities are of little value, as manganese and minion* 
See additional notes, No. XXXIII. In every hundred weight of minium 
ombined about twelve pounds of pure air; now, as sixty pounds of 
about a cubic Lout, and as air is eight hundred times lij 

ht of minium wiU produce eight hundred cubic feet 
of air, or about six thousand gallons. Now, as this is at least tin 
as armosphi ri< air, a pallon of it may be suppo cd ■ e minutes 



Canto IV. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. Ill 

The diving castles, roof'd with spheric glass, 

Ribb'd with strong oak, and barr'd with bolts of brass, 210 

Buov'd with pure air shall endless tracts pursue, 

And Priestley's hand the vital flood renew.— 

Then shall Britannia rule the wealthy realms, 

Which Ocean's wide insatiate wave o'erwhelms j 

Confine in netted bowers his scaly flocks, 215 

Part his blue plains, and people all his i-ocks. 

Deep, in warm waves beneath the Line that roll, 

Beneath the shadowy ice-isles of the Pole, 

Onward, through bright meandering vales, afar, 

Obedient Sharks shall trail her sceptred car, 220 

With harness'd necks the pearly flood disturb, 

Stretch the silk reign, and champ the silver curb ; 

Pleased round her triumph wondering Tritons plav, 

And Sea-maids hail her on the watery way. 

— Oft shall she weep beneath the crystal waves 225 

O'er shipwreck'd lovers weltering in their graves ; 

Mingling in death the Brave and Good behold 

With slaves to glory, and with slaves to gold ; 

Shrined in the deep shall Day and Spalding mourn. 

Each in his treacherous bell, sepulchral urn ! — 230 



minium, by vitriolic acid, without the application of some heat ; this is, how- 
ever, very likely soon to be discovered, and will then enable adventurers to 
journey beneath the ocean in large inverted ships, or diving balloons. 

Mr. Boyle relates, that Cornelius Drebelle contrived not only a vessel to 
be rowed under water, but also a liquor to be carried in that vessel which 
would supply the want of fresh air. The vessel was made by order of James 
I. and carried twelve rowers besides passengers. It was tried in the river 
Thames, and one of the persons who was in that submarine voyage told the 
particulars of the experiments to a person who related them to Mr. Boyle. 
Annual Register for 1774, p. 248. 

Day and Spalding mourn. 1. 229. Mr. Day perished in a diving-bell, or 
diving-boat, of his own construction, at Plymouth, in June, 1774, in which 
he was to have continued, for a wager, twelve hours, one hundred feet deep 
in water, and probably perished from his not possessing all the hydrostatic 
knowledge that was necessary. See note on Ulva, vol. ii. of this work. 
See Annual Register for 1774, p. 245. 

Mr Spalding was professionally ingenious in the art of constructing and 
managing the diving-bell, and had practised the business many years with 
success. He went down, accompanied by one of his young men, twice, to 
view the wreck of the Imperial East-Indiaman, at the Kish bank, in Ireland. 
On descending the third time, in June, 1783, they remained about an hour 
under water, and had two barrels of air sent down to them ; but, on the sig- 
nals from below not being again repeated, after a certain time, thev were 

Part I. R 



BOTANIC GARDEN. Pari I 

Oft o'er thy lovely daughters, hapless Pierce ! 

Her sighs shall breathe, her sorrows clew their hearse.— 

With brow upturn'd to Heaven, ' We xvill not part /' 

He cried, and clasp'd them to his aching heart. — 

-— Dash'd in dread conflict on the rocky grounds, 23J 

Crash the shock'd masts, the staggering wreck rebounds ; 

Through gaping seams the rushing deluge swims, 

Chills their pale bosoms, bathe3 their shuddering limbr., 

Climbs their white shoulders, buoys their streaming hair, 

And the last sea-shriek bellows in the air. — 240 

Each with loud sobs her tender sire caress'd, 

And gasping strain'd him closer to her breast !— 

— Stretch' d on one bier they sleep beneath the brine, 

And their white bones with ivory arms intwine ! 

VII. " Sylphs of. nice ear! with beating wings you guide 
The fine vibrations of the aerial tide ; 24& 

Join in sweet cadences the measured words, 
Or stretch and modulate the trembling cords. 
You strung to melody the Grecian lyre, 

Breathed the rapt song, and fann'd the thought of fire, 250 
Or brought in combinations, deep and clear, 
Immortal harmony to Handel's ear. — 
Tou with soft breath attune the vernal gale, 
When breezy evening broods the listening vale ; 
Or wake the loud tumultuous sounds, that dwell ■■'■>■' 

In Echo's many-toned diumal shell. 
Tou melt in dulcet chords, when Zephvr rings 
The Eolian Harp, and mingle all its strings ; 



drawn up by their assistants, and both found dead in the bell. Annual Re* 
gister for 1783, p. 206. These two unhappy events may, for a time, cheek 
the ardour of adventurers in traversing the bottom of the ocean; but, it is 
probable, in another half century it may be safer to travel under the ocean 
than over it, since Dr. Priestley's discovery of procuring pure air in auch 
great abundance from the calces of inetals. 

Uapless Pierct .' 1.231. The Halsewell, East-Indiaman, outward bound; 
was wrecked oil' Seacomb, in the isle of Purbec, on the 6th of Januan , 17S6, 
when Capt. Pierce, the commander, with two young ladies, his daughters, 
and the greatest p;irt of the crew and passengers, perished in the sea. Some 
of the officers, and about seventy seamen, escaped with great difficult) on 
the rocks; but C ipt. Fierce, finding it was impossible to save the lives of tAJ 
young ladies, rolu:cd to quit the ship, and perished with their. 



Ca>jtoIV. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. Ill 

Or trill in air the soft symphonious chime, 

When rapt Cecilia lifts her eye sublime, 260 

Swell, as she breathes, her bosom's rising snow, 

O'er her white teeth in tuneful accents flow ; 

Through her fair lips, on whispering pinions move, 

And form the tender sighs that kindle love ! 

*' So playful Love on Ida's flowery sides 265 

With ribbon-rein the indignant Lion guides; 
Pleased on his brinded back the lyre he rings, 
And shakes delirious rapture from the strings ; 
Slow as the pausing Monarch stalks along, 
Sheaths his retractile claws, and drinks the song ; 270 

Soft Nymphs on timid step the triumph view, 
And listening Fawns with beating hoofs pursue ; 
With pointed ears the alarmed forest starts, 
And Love and Music soften savage hearts. 

VIII. " Sylphs ! your bold hosts, when Heaven with justice 
dread 2/5 

Calls the red tempest round the guilty head, 
Fierce at his nod assume vindictive forms, 
And launch from airy cars the vollied storms. — < 
From Ashur's vales when proud Senacherib trod, 
Pour'd his swoln heart, defied the living God, 280 

Urged with incessant shouts his glittering powers, 
And Judah shook through all her massy towers ; 
Round her sad altars press'd the prostrate crowd, 
Hosts beat their breasts, and suppliant chieftains bow'd ; 
Loud shrieks of matrons thrill'd the troubled air, 285 

And trembling virgins rent their scatter'd hair ; 
High in the midst the kneeling King adored, 
Spread the blaspheming scroll before the Lord, 
Raised his pale hands, and breathed his pausing sighs, 
And fix'd on Heaven his dim imploring eyes, — .290 

*' Oh ! Mighty God ! amidst thy Seraph-throng 
■ c Who sit'st sublime, the Judge of Right and Wrong ; 

Indignant Lion guides. 1.266. Described from an ancient gem, expressive 
ftf the comhintd power of love and music, in the Museum Florerrt. 



114 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part 1. 

" Thine the wide earth, bright sun, and starry zone, 

" That twinkling journey round thy golden throne ; 

" Thine is the crystal source of life and light, 295 

" And thine the realms of Death's eternal night. 

u Oh ! hind thine ear, thv gracious eye incline, 

a Lo! Ashur's King blasphemes thy holy shrine, 

" Insults our offerings, and derides our vows, — 

*' Oh ! strike the diadem from his impious brows, 300 

" Tear from his murderous hand the bloody rod, 

" And teach the trembling nations, Thou art God !" 

—Sylphs / in what dread array with pennons broad 

Onward ye floated o'er the ethereal road, 

Call'd each dank steam the reeking marsh exhales, 30* 

Contagious vapours, and volcanic gales, 

Gave the soft South with poisonous breath to blow, 

And roll'd the dreadful whirlwind on the foe ! 

Hark ! o'er the camp the venom'd tempest sings, 

Man falls on Man, on buckler buckler rings ; 310 

Groan answers groan, to anguish anguish yields, 

And Death's loud accents shake the tented fields ! 

— High rears the Fiend his grinning jaws, and wide 

Spans the pale nations with colossal stride, 

Waves his broad falchion with uplifted hand, 315 

And his vast shadow darkens all the land. 

Volcanic gales . 1. 306. The pestilential winds of the east are described by 
various authors under various denominations, as harmattan, samiel, samium, 
syrocca, kamsin, seravansum. M. de Beauchamp describes a remarkable 
south wind in the deserts about Bagdad, called seravansum, or poison wind ; 
it burns the face, impedes respiration, strips the trees of their leaves, and 
is said to pass on in a straight line, and often kills people in six hours. P. 
Cotte sur la Meteorol. Analytical Review for February, 1"90. M. Volney 
says, the hot wind, or ramsin, seems to blow at the season when the sands 
of the deserts are the hottest ; the air is then filled with an extremely subtle 
dust. Vol. i. p. 61. These winds blow in all directions from the deserts; in 
Egypt the most violent proceed from the S. S. W. at Mecca, from the E. at 
Surat, from the N. at Bassora, from the N. W. at Bagdad, from the W. and 
in Syria, from the S. E. 

On the south of Syria, he adds, where the Jordan flows, is a country of 
volcanoes; and it is observed, that the earthquakes in Syria happen alter their 
rainy season, which is also conformable to a similar observation made In Dr. 
Shaw, in Barbary. Travels in Egypt, vol. i. p. oU3. 

These winds seem all to he of volcanic origin, as before mentioned, with 
this difl'erence, that the simoom is attended with a .stream of electric matter; 
they seem to be in consequence of earthquakes caused by the monsoon Hoods, 
which fall on volcanic fires in Syria, at the same time that they inundate the 
Nile. 



Canto IV. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 115 

IX. 1. " Ethereal Cohorts ! Essences of Air ! 
Make the green children of the Spring your care ! 
Oh, Sylphs ! disclose in this inquiring age 
One golden secret to some favour'd sage ; 320 

Grant the charm'd talisman, the chain that binds, 
Or guides the changeful pinions of the winds ! 
— No more shall hoary Boreas, issuing forth 
Wirh Eurus, lead the tempests of the North; 
Rime the pale Dawn, or veil'd in flaky showers 325 

Chill the sweet bosoms of the smiling Hours. 
By whispering Auster waked shall Zephyr rise, 
Meet with soft kiss, and mingle in the skies, 
Fan the gay floret, bend the yellow ear, 

And rock the uncurtain'd cradle of the year ; 330 

Autumn and Spring in lively union blend, 
And from the skies the golden Age descend. 

2. " Castled on ice, beneath the circling Bear, 
A vast Camelion drinks and vomits air ; 
O'er twelve degrees his ribs gigantic bend, oS5 

And many a league his gasping jaws extend ; 
Half-fish, beneath, his scaly volutes spread, 
And vegetable plumage crests his head ; 
Huge fields of air his wrinkled skin receives, 
From panting gills, wide lungs, and waving leaves ; 340 

Then with dread throes subsides his bloated form, 
His shriek the thunder, and his sigh the storm. 

One golden secret. 1. 320.- The suddenness of the change of the wind from 
N. E. to S. W. seems to show that it depends on some minute chemical cause, 
which, if it was discovered, might probably, like other chemical causes, be 
governed by human agency, such as blowing up rocks by gun-powder, or 
extracting the lightning from the clouds. If this could be accomplished, it 
would be the most happy discovery that ever has happened to these northern 
latitudes, since in this country the N. E. winds bring frost, and the S. W. 
ones are attended with warmth and moisture : if the inferior currents of air 
could be kept perpetually from the S. W. supplied by new productions of air 
at the line, or by superior currents flowing in a contrary direction, the vege- 
tation of this country would be doubled, as in the moist vallies of Africa, 
which know no frost; the number of its inhabitants would be increased, and 
their lives prolonged ; as great abundance of the aged and infirm of mankind, 
as well as many birds and animals, are destroyed by severe continued frosts in 
this climate. 

A vast Camelion. 1. 334. See additional notes, No. XXXIII. on the de- 
struction and re-production of the atmosphere. 



lib BOTANIC GARDEX. Part I. 

Oft high in heaven the hissing Demon wins 

His towering course, upborne on winnowing fins ; 

Steers with expanded eye and gaping mouth, 345 

His mass enormous to the affrighted South ; 

Spreads o'er the shuddering Line his shadowy limbs. 

And Frost and Famine follow as he swims. — 

Sylphs ! round his cloud-built couch your bands array, 

And mould the Monster to your gentle sway ; S50 

Charm with soft tones, with tender touches check, 

Bend to your golden yoke his willing neck, 

With silver curb his yielding teeth restrain, 

And give to Kirwan's hand the silken reign. 

— Pleased shall the Sage, the dragon-wings between, 35S 

Bend o'er discordant climes his eve serene, 

With Lapland breezes cool Arabian vales, 

And call to Hindostan antarctic gales, 

Adorn with wreathed ears Kampschatca's brows, 

And scatter roses on Zealandic snows, 360 

Earth's wondering Zones die genial seasons share. 

And nations hail him * Monarch of the Air.' 

X. 1. " SylpJis ! as you hover on ethereal wing, 
Brood the green children of parturient Spring ! — 
Where in their bursting cells my Embryons rest, 365 

I charge you guard the vegetable nest ; 
Count with nice eye the mvriad Seeds, that swell 
Each vaulted womb of husk, or pod, or shell ; 



To Kiribati's band. I. 354. Mr. Kirwan has published a valuable treatise 
on the temperature of climates, as a step towards investigating the theory of 
the winds, and has since written some ingenious paper6 on this subject, in 
the Transactions of the Royal Irish Society. 

The myriad Seeds. 1. "67. Nature would seem to have been wonderfully 
prodigal in the seeds of vegetables, and the spawn of Bab ; almost any one 
plant, if all its seeds should grow to maturity, would, in a few years, alone 
people the terrestrial globe. Mr. Ray asserts that 101J seeds of tobacco 
vc ghed only one grain, and that from one tobacco plant the seeds thus cal- 
culated amounted to 360,000. The seeds of the ferns are by him supposed 
to exceed a million on a leaf. As the works of nature are governed by ge- 
nernl laws, this exuberant re-production prevents the accidental extinction 
cf the species, at the same time that they serve for food for the higher order! 
of animation. 

Every teed possesses a reservoir of nutriment designed for the growth of 



Canto IV. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 117 

Feed with sweet juices, clothe with downy hair, 

Or hang, inshrined, their little orbs in air. -370 

" So, late descry'd by Herschel's piercing sight, 
Hang the bright squadrons of the twinkling Night ; 
Ten thousand marshal'd stars, a silver zone, 
Effuse their blended lustres round her throne ; 
Suns call to suns, in lucid clouds conspire, 3Z5- 

And light exterior skies with golden fire j 
Resisdess rolls the illimitable sphere, 
And one great circle forms the unmeasured year. 
—Roll on, ye Stars ! exult in youthful prime, 
Mark with bright curves the printless steps of Time ; 380 

Near and more near your beamy cars approach, 
And lessening orbs on lessening orbs encroach ;— 
Flowers of the sky! ye too to age must yield, 
Frail as your silken sisters of the field ! 

Star after star from Heaven's high arch shall rush, ,383 

Suns sink on suns, and systems systems crush, 
Headlong, extinct, to one dark centre fall, 
And Death, and Night, and Chaos mingle all ! 
— Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm, 
Immortal Nature lifts her changeful form, 09Q 

Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame, 
And soars and shines, another and the same. 



the future plant; this consists of starch, mucilage, or oil, within the coat o£ 
the seed, or of sugar and sub-acid pulp in the fruit, which belongs to it. 

For the preservation of the immature seed, nature has used many ingeni- 
ous methods; some are wrapped in down, as the seeds of the rose, bean, and 
cotton-plant ; others are suspended in a large air-vessel, as those of the blad» 
der-sena, staphylaea, and pea. 

And light exterior. 1. 376. I suspect this line is from Dwight's Conquest: 
of Canaan, a poem written by a very young man, and which contains much 
fine versification. 

Near and more near. I. 381. From the vacant spaces in some parts of the 
heavens, and the correspondent clusters of stars in their vicinity, Mr. Her- 
chel concludes that the nebulae, or constellations of fixed stars, are approach- 
ing each other, and must finally coalesce in one mass. Phil. Trans, vol. lxxv. 

Till o'er the wreck. 1. 389. The story of the phoenix rising from its own 
ashes, with a twinkling star upon its head, seems to have been an ancient 
hieroglyphic emblem of the destruction and resuscitation of all things. 

There is a figure of the great Platonic year, with a phoenix on his hand; on 
tJic reverse of a medal of Adrian. Spence's Polym. p. 189, 



118 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

2. " Lo ! on each Seed within its slender rind 
Life's golden threads in endless circles wind ; 
Maze within maze the lucid webs are roll'd, 395 

And, as they burst, the living flame unfold. 
The pulpv acorn, ere it swells, contains 
The Oak's vast branches in its milky veins ; 
Each ravel'd bud, fine film, and fibre-line 

Traced with nice pencil on the small design. 400 

The young Narcissus, in its bulb compress'd, 
Cradles a second nestling on its breast ; 
In whose fine arms a younger embryon lies, 
Folds its thin leaves, and shuts its floret-eyes ; 
Grain within grain successive harvests dwell, 403 

And boundless forests slumber in a shell. 
— So yon grey precipice, and ivy'd towers, 
Long winding meads, and intermingled bowers, 
Green files of poplars, o'er the lake that bow, 
And glimmering wheel, which rolls and foams below, 410 

In one bright point with nice distinction lie 
Plann'd on the moving tablet of the eye. 
— So, fold on fold, Earth's wavy plains extend, 
And, sphere in sphere, its hidden strata bend ;— 



Maze within maze. 1.395. The elegant appearance, on dissection, of the 
young tulip in the bulb, was first observed by Mariotte, and is mentioned in 
the note on Tulipa, in vol. ii. and was afterwards noticed by Uu Hamel. Acad- 
Scien. Lewenhoeck assures us, that in the bud of a currant-tree he could 
not only discover the ligneous part, but even the berries themselves, appear- 
ing like small grapes. Chamb. Diet. art. Bud. Mr. Baker says he dissected 
a seed of trembling grass in which a perfect plant appeared, with its root 
sending forth two branches, from each of which several leaves, or blades of 
grass, proceeded. Microsc. vol. i. p. 252. Mr. Bonnet saw four genera- 
tions of successive plants in the bulb of a hyacinth. Bonnet Corps Organ, 
vol. i. p. 103. Mailer's Physiol, vol. i. p. 91. In the terminal bud of a 
horse-chesnut the new flower may be seen by the naked eye, covered with a 
mucilaginous down, and the same in the bulb of a narcissus, as I this morn- 
ing observed in several of them sent me by Miss , for that purpose. 

Sept 16. 

Mr. Ferber speaks of the pleasure he received in observing in the buds of 
hepaiica and pedicularis hirsuta, yet lying hid in the earth, and in the germs 
of the shrub daphne mezereon, and at the base of osmunda lunaria, a perfect 
plant of the future year, discernible in all its parts a \e;ir before it comes 
forth; and in the seals of nymphea nelumbo, the leaves of the plant weu- 
seen o distim tly that the author found out by them what plant the seeds be- 
longed to. The same ol the seeds of the tulip-trcc, or liriodendron tulrpire- 
rum. Anuen. A< id vol •■ ; . 



C^vToIV. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 119 

Incumbent Spring her beamy plumes expands 415 

O'er restless oceans, and impatient lands, 

With genial lustres warms the mighty ball, 

And the great Seed evolves, disclosing all; 

Lift, buds or breathes from Indus to the Poles, 

And the vast surface kindles as it rolls ! 420 

3. " Come, ye svft Sylphs ! who sport on Latian land, 
Come, sweet-lip'd Zephvr, and Favonius bland ! 
Teach the fine Seed, instinct with life, to shoot 
On Earth's cold bosom its descending root ; 
With Pith elastic stretch its rising stem, 425 

Part the twin Lobes, expand the throbbing Gem ; 
Clasp in your airy arms the aspiring Plume, 
Fan with your balmy breath its kindling bloom, 
Each widening scale and bursting film unfold, 
Swell the green cup, and tint the flower with gold ; 430 

And the great Seed. 1. 418. Alluding to the it^oroi wov, or first great egg of 
the ancient philosophy; it had a serpent wrapped round it, emblematical of 
divine wisdom ; an image of it was afterwards preserved, and worshipped 
in the temple of Dioscuri, and supposed to represent the egg of Leda. See 
a print of it in Bryant's Mythology. It was said to have been broken by 
the horns of the celestial bull ; that is, it was hatched by the warmth of the 
spring. See note on Canto I. 1. 413. 

And the vast surface. 1. 420. L 'Organization, le sentiment, le movement 
spontane - , la vie, n'existent qu'a. la surface de la terre, et dans le lieux ex- 
poses a. la lumiere. Traite de Chymie par M. Lavoisier, torn. i. p. 202. 

Teach the fine Seed. 1. 423. The seeds, in their natural state, fall on the 
surface of the earth, and, having absorbed some moisture, the root shoots 
itself downwards into the earth, and the plume rises in air. Thus each en- 
deavouring to seek its proper pabulum, directed by a vegetable irritability 
similar to that of the lacteal system, and to the lungs in animals. 

The pith seems to push up or elongate the bud by its elasticity, like the 
pith in the callow quills of birds. This medulla Linnseus believes to consist 
of a bundle of fibres, which, diverging, breaks through the bark, yet gela- 
tinous, producing the buds. 

The lobes are reservoirs of prepared nutriment for the young seed, which 
is absorbed by its placental vessels, and converted into sugar, till it has pene- 
trated with its roots far enough into the earth to extract sufficient moisture, 
and has acquired leaves to convert it into nourishment. In some plants these 
lobes rise from the earth, and supply the place of leaves, as in kidney-beans s 
cucumbers; and hence seem to serve both as a placenta to the foetus, and 
lungs to the young plant. During the process of germination, the starch of 
the seed is converted into sugar, as is seen in the process of malting barley 
for the purpose of brewing; and is, on this account, very similar to the di- 
gestion of food in the stomachs of animals, which converts all their aliment 
into a chyle, which consists of mucilage, oil, and sugar. The placentation of 
buds will be spoken of bsreafttr. 

Part I. S 



120 BOTANIC GARDEN. Par* L- 

While in bright veins the silver}- Sap ascends, 

And refluent blood in milky eddies bends ; 

While, spread in air, the leaves respiring play, 

Or drink the golden quintessence of day. 

— So from bis shell on Delta's showerless isle 435 

Bursts into life the Monster of the Nile ; 

First in translucent lymph with cobweb-threads 

The Brain's fine floating tissue swells, and spreads ; 

Nerve after nerve the glistening spine descends, 

The red Heart dances, the Aorta bends ; 440 

Through each new gland the purple current glides, 

New Veins meandering drink the refluent tides; 

Edge over edge expands the hardening scale, 

And sheaths his slimy skin in silver mail. 

— Erewhile, emerging from the brooding sand, 44S 

With Tvger-paw he prints the brineless strand, 

High on the flood widi speckled bosom swims, 

Kelm'd with broad tail, and oar'd with giant limbs ; 

Rolls his fierce eve-balls, clasps his iron claws, 

And champs with gnashing teeth his massy jaws ; 450 

Old Nilus sighs along his cane-crown'd shores, 

And swarthy Memphis trembles and adores. 

XI. " Come, ye soft Sylphs ! who fan the Paphian groves, 
And bear on sportive wings the callow Loves ; 
Call widi sweet whisper, in each gale diat blows, 4J5 

The slumbering Snow-drop from her long repose ; 
Charm the pale Primrose from her clay-cold bed, 
Unveil the bashful Violet's tremulous head ; 

The silvery Sap. 1. 431. See additional notes, No. XXXV. 

And refluent blood. 1. 432. See additional notes, No. XXXVI. 

The leaves respiring play. 1.433. See additional notes, No. XXXVII. 

Or drink the golden. 1.434. Linnscus, having observed the great influence 
of light on vegetation, imagined that the leaves of plants inhaled electric 
matter from the light with their upper surface. (System of Vegetables trans- 
lated, p. 8). 

The effect of light on plants occasions the actions of the vegetable muscles 
of their leaf-stalks, which turn the upper side of the leaf to the light, and 
which i pen their calyxes and corols, according to the experiments of Abbe 
/ho exposed variety of plants, in a cavern, to different quantities 
of light Hist, de L'Academie Royal. Ann. 1783. The sleep or vigilance 
of plants seems owing lu the presence or absence of this stimulus. See note 
jn Mimosa, fart II. 



Canto IV. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 121 

While from her bud the playful Tulip breaks, 

And young Carnations peep with blushing cheeks ; 460 

Bid the closed Corol from nocturnal cold 

Curtain'd with silk the virgin Stigma fold, 

Shake into viewless air the morning dews, 

And wave in light its iridescent hues. 

So shall from high the bursting Anther trust 466" 

To the mild breezes the prolific dust ; 

Or bow his waxen head with graceful pride, 

Watch the first blushes of his waking bride. 

Give to her hand the honey'd cup, or sip 

Celestial nectar from her sweeter lip ; 470 

Hang in soft raptures o'er the yielding Fair, 

Love out his hour, and leave his life in air. 

So in his silken sepulchre the Worm, 

Warm'd with new life, unfolds his larva-form ; 

Erewhile aloft in wanton circles moves, 475 

And woos on Hymen-wings his velvet loves. 

XII. 1. " If prouder branches with exuberance rude 
Point their green germs, their barren shoots protrude ; 

Honey'd cup. 1. 469. The nectary, or honey-gland, supplies food to the 
vegetable males and females, which, like moths and butterflies, live on the 
honey thus produced for them, till they have propagated their species, and 
deposited their eggs, and then die ; as explained in additional note, No. 
XXXIX. The tops of the stamens, or anthers, are covered with wax, to 
protect the prolific dust from the injury of showers and dews, to which it is 
impervious. 

Love out his hour. 1. 472. The vegetable passion of love is agreeably seen 
in the flower of the parnassia, in which the males alternately approach and 
recede from the female ; and in the flower of nigella, or devil in the bush, in 
which the tall females bend down to their dwarf husbands. But I was this 
morning surprised to observe, amongst Sir Brooke Boothby's valuable collection 
of plants at Ashboum, the manifest adultery of several females of the plant 
Collinsonia, who had bent themselves into contact with the males of other 
flowers of the same plant in their vicinity, neglectful of their own. Sept. 16, 
See additional notes, No. XXXVIII. 

Unfolds his larva-form. 1. 474. The flower bursts forth from its larva, the 
herb, naked and perfect like a butterfly from its chrysalis; winged with its 
corol ; wing-sheathed by its calyx ; consisting alone of the organs of repro- 
duction. The males, or stamens, have their anthers replete with a prolific 
powder, containing the vivifying fovilla ; in the females, or pistils, exists the 
ovary, terminated by the tubular stigma. When the anthers burst and shed 
their bags of dust, the male fovilla is received by the prolific lymph of the 
Stigma, and produces the seed or egg, which is nourished in the ovary. Sys- 
ttm of VagetaWes, translated from Linnseus by the Lichfield Society, p. 10. 



122 LNIC GARDEN. Pa, 

Wound them, yt Sylphs.' with little knives, or hind 

A win ringlet round the swelling rind ; -ISO 

Bisect with chissel fine the root below, 

Or bend to earth the inhospitable bough. 

Wound them, ye Sylphs. 1. 479. Mr. Whitmill advised to bind some of the 
most vigorous shoots with strong wire, and even some of the large roots; 
and Mr. Warner cuts what he calls a wild worm about the body of the tree, 
or scores the bark quite to the wood, like a screw, -with a sharp kni! 
ley on Gardening, vol. ii. p. 155. Mr. Fitzgerald produced Howers and £i uit 
on wall-trees by cutting off a part of the bark. Phil 1 rans. Ann. 1 
Buffon produced the same effect by a straight bandage put round a branch, 
Act. Paris, Ann. 1~38; and concludes that an ingraf'ed branch bears better 
from its vessels being compressed by the callus. 

A complete cylinder of the bark, about an inch in height, was cut off 
from the branch of a pear-tree, against a wall, in Mr. Howard's garden, at 
Lichfield, about five years ago; the circumcised part is new not abo\e half 
The diameter of the branch above and below it, yet this branch ha 
of fruit every year since, when the other branches of the tree bore onlj spar- 
ingly. I lately observed that the leaves of this wounded branch were smaller 
and paler, and the fruit less in size, and ripened sooner than on the other 
parts of the tree. Another branch has the bark taken off not quite all round, 
with much the same effect. 

The theory of this curious vegetable fact has been esteemed difficult, but 
receives great light from the foregoing account of the individuality of buds. 
A flower-bud dies, when it lias perfected its seed, like an annual plant, and 
hence requires no place on the bark for new roots to pass downwards; but, 
on the contrary, leaf-buds, as they advance into shoots, form new buds in the 
axilla of every leaf, which new buds require new roots to pass down the bark, 
and thus thicken as well as elongate the branch : now, if a wire or string be 
tied round the bark, many of tliese new roots cannot descend, and thence 
more of the buds will be converted into Hower-buds. 

It is customary to debark oak-trees in the spring, which are intended to 
be filled in the ensuing autumn, because the bark comes off easier at this 
season, and the sap-wood, or alburnum, is believed to become harder and 
more durable, if the tree remains till the end of summer. '1 he trees, thus 
stripped of their bark, put forth shoots as usual, with acorns, on the Oth, 7th, 
and 8th joint, like vines; but in the branches 1 examined, the joints of the 
debarked trees were much shorter than those of other oak tins ; •.:.. 
were more numerous ; and ho new buds were produced above the joints which 
bore acorns. From hence it appears that the branches of deba>kid oak-trees 
produce fewer leaf-buds, and more flower-buds ; which last circumstance, I 
suppose, must depend on their being sooner or later debarked in the vernal 
months. And, secondly, that the new buds of debarked oak-lra 
to obtain moisture from the alburnum, after the season of tii< ascent oi s.-.p 
bles ceases; which, in this unnatural state . .1 

tree, may act as capillary tubes, like the alburnum of the small d 

f a pear-tree above-mentioned ; or ma) continue to acl a 
as happens to the animal embryon in casi 

inues a month or two in the womb beyond its usual time, of 
aces have been recorded, the pla 
perhapi , th< double ulliee both of nutrition and respiration. 

Mr. Hitt, in his tre.iti.-~e on fruit-trees, 
. igorous bianch of a wall-tree be bent to the horizon, or beneath it. 



Canto IV. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 123 

So shall each Germ with new prolific power 

Delay the leaf-bud, and expand the flower ; 

Closed in the Style the tender Pith shall end, 485 

The lengthening Wood in circling Stamens bend ; 

The smoother Rind its soft embroidery spread 

In vaulted Petals o'er the gorgeous bed ; 

The wrinkled bark, in filmv mazes roll'd, 

Form the green Calyx, fold including fold ; 490 

Each widening Bracte expand its foliage hard, 

And hem the bright pavilion, Floral Guard, 

— So the cold rill from Cintra's steepy sides, 

Headlong, abrupt, in barren channels glides ; 

Round the rent cliffs the bark -bound Suber spreads, 495 

And lazy monks recline on corky beds ; 

Till, led by art, the wondering water moves 

Through vine-hung avenues, and citron groves ; 

it loses its vigour, and becomes a bearing branch. The theory of this I sup- 
pose to depend on the difficulty with which the leaf-shoots can protrude the 
roots necessar) for their new progeny of buds upwards, along the bended 
branch, to the earrh, contrary to their natural habits or powers, whence more 
flower-shoots are produced, which do not require new roots to pass along the 
bark of the bended branch, but which let their offspring, the seeds, fall upon 
the earth, and seek roots for themselves. 

With new prolific paver. 1. 483. About Midsummer the new buds are formed. 
but it is believed by some of the Linnxan school, that these buds may, in their 
early state, be either converted into flower-buds or leaf-buds, according to the 
vigour of the vegetating branch. Thus, if the upper part of a branch be cut 
away, the buds near the extremity of the remaining stem, having a greater 
proportional supply of nutriment, or possessing a greater facility of shooting 
their roots, or absorbent vessels, down the bark, will become leaf-buds, which 
might otherwise have been flower-buds, and the contrary ; as explained in 
note on 1. 479 of this Canto. 

Closed in the Style. 1. 485. " I conceive the medulla of a plant to consist of 
a bundle of nervous fibres, and that the propelling vital power separates their 
uppermost extremities. These, diverging, penetrate the bark, which is now 
gelatinous, and become multiplied in the new germ, or leaf-bud. The ascend- 
ing vessels of the bark being thus divided by the nervous fibres, which per- 
forate it, and the ascent of its fluids being thus impeded, the bark is extended 
into a leaf. But the flower is produced when the protrusion of the medulla 
is greater than the retention of the including cortical part ; whence the sub- 
stance of the bark is expanded in the calyx ; that of the rind (or interior bark), 
in the corol ; that of the wood, in the stamens ; that of the medulla, in the 
pistil. Vegetation thus terminates in the production of new life, the ultimate 
medullary and cortical fibres being collected in the seeds." Linnan Systema 
Veget. p. 6. edit. 14. 

Cintra. 1. 493. A village on the side of the rock of Lisbon: around the 
summit are abundance of cork trees, and some excavations, which a few 
monks inhabit, and sleep on beds or benches of cork ; near the village Mr 
Beckford has an elegant seat. 



1*4 BOTANIC GARDEX. Part I. 

Green slopes the velvet round its silver source, 

And flowers, and fruits, and foliage mark its course. 500 

At breezv eve, along the irriguous plain 

The fair Beckfordia leads her virgin train ; 

Seeks the cool grot, the shadowy rocks among, 

And tunes the mountain-echoes to her song ; 

Or prints with graceful steps the margin green, SOS 

And brighter glories gild the enchanted scene. 

2. " Where cruder juices swell the leafy vein, 
Stint the young germ, the tender blossom stain j 
On each lopp'd shoot a foster scion bind, 

Pith press'd to pith, and lind applied to rind ; 510 

So shall die trunk with loftier crest ascend, 
And wide in air its happier arms extend ; 
Nurse the new buds, admire the leaves unknown, 
And blushing bend with fruitage not its own. 

" Thus when in holy triumph Aaron trod, 515 

And ofFcr'd on the shrine his mystic rod ; 
First a new bark its silken tissue weaves, 
New buds emerging widen into leaves ; 
Fair fruits protrude, enascent flowers expand, 
And blush and tremble round the living wand. 520 



Nurse the nea buds. 1. 513. Mr. Fairchild budded a passion-tree, whote 
leaves were spotted with yellow, into one which bears long fruit. The buds 
did not take ; nevertheless, in a fortnight, yellow spots began to show them- 
selves about three feet above the inoculation, and in a short time after* .irds 
yellow 6pots appeared on a shoot which came out of the ground from another 
part of the plant. Bradley, vol. ii. p. 129. These facts are the more curious, 
since, from experiments of ingrafting red currants on black (ib. vol. ii.) the 
fruit does not acquire any change of flavour, and, by many other experiments, 
neither colour, nor any other change, is produced in the fruit ingrafted on 
other stocks. 

There is an apple described in Bradley's work, which is said to have one 

sideoi it u Bweei fruit, which boils soft, and the other side a sow fruit, which 

boils hard, which Mr. Bradley, so 1 mg ago as the year 1721, ingeniously as- 

cribes to the farina of one of these apples impregnating the otter, which 

m the more probable if we consider that each division of an apple 

irate womb, and may, therefore, have a separate impregnation, like 

in <-nc iitur The same is Kaid to have occurred ir. 

i and lemons, t a erent colours, 



Canto IV. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 12* 

XIII. 1. " Sylphs ! on each Oak-bud wound the wormy galls 
With pigmy spears, or crush the venom'd balls ; 
Fright the green Locust from his foamy bed, 
Unweave the Caterpillar's gluey thread ; 

Chase the fierce Earwig, scare the bloated Toad, 525 

Arrest the Snail upon his slimy road ; 
Arm with sharp thorns the Sweet-briar's tender wood. 
And dash the Cynips from her damask bud ; 
Steep in ambrosial dews the Woodbine's bells, 
And drive the Night-moth from her honey 'd cells, 530 

So where the Humming-bird in Chili's bowers 
On murmuring pinions robs the pendent flowers ; 
Seeks, where fine pores their dulcet balm distil, 
And sucks the treasure with proboscis-bill j 
Fair Cyprepedia, with successful guile, 535 

Knits her smooth brow, extinguishes her smile i 
A Spider's bloated paunch and jointed arms 
Hide her fine form, and mask her blushing charms 5 
In ambush sly the mimic warrior lies, 
And on quick wing the panting plunderer flies. 54G- 



Their dulcet balm distil. 1. 533. See additional notes, No. XXXIX. 

Fair Cyprepedia. 1. 535. The cyprepedium from South-America is supposed 
to be of larger size, and brighter colours, than that from North- America, 
from which this print is taken ; it has a large globular nectary, about the size 
of a pigeon's egg, of a fleshy colour, and an incision, or depression, on its 
upper part, much resembling the body of the large American spider : this 
globular nectary is attached to divergent slender petals, not unlike the legs of 
the same animal. This spider is called bv^Linnxus arenea avicularia, with a 
convex orbicular thorax, the centre transversely excavated ; he adds, that it 
catches small birds as well as insects, and has the venomous bite of a serpent. 
System. Natur. torn. i. p. 1034. M. Lonvilliers de Poincy, (Histoire Nat. 
des Antilles, Cap. xiv. art. III.) calls it Phalange, and describes the body to 
be the size of a pigeon's egg, with a hollow on its back like a navel, and men- 
tions its catching the humming-bird in its strong nets. 

The similitude of this flower to this great spider seems to be a vegetable 
contrivance to prevent the humming-bird from plundering its honey. About 
Matlock, in Derbyshire, the fly-ophris is produced, the nectary of which so 
much resembles the small wall-bee, perhaps the apis ichneumonea, that it may 
be easily mistaken for it at a small distance. It is probable that by this means 
it may often escape being plundered. See note on Lonicera in the next poem, 
and on Epidendrum. 

A bird of our own country, called a willow-wren (motacilla), runs up the 
3tem of the crown-imperial (frittillaria coronalis), and sips the pendulous 
drops within its petals. This species of motacilla is called by Ray regulus 
aon crisutiis- White's Hist, of Selborne. 



BOTANIC (.ARDEN. 

2. u Shield dr* young Harvest from devouring Might, 
Smut's chirk poison, and the Mildew white ; 
Deep-rooted Mould, and Ergons horn uncouth, 
And break the- C.mkcTs desolating tooth. 

First in one point the festering wound confined 345 

Mines unperceived heneath the shrivel'd rind ; 
Then climbs the hranche.s with increasing strength, 
Spreads as they spread, and Lengthens with their length. 
— Thus the slight wound, engraved on glass unneaTd, 
Runs in white lines along the lucid field ; 550 

Crack follows crack, to laws elastic just, 
And the frail fabric shivers into dust. 



Shield the yoitng Harvest. 1. 541. Linnrtus enumerates but four diseases of 
plants; Erysyphe, the white mncor, or mould, with sessile tawny heads, 
with which the leaves are sprinkled, as is frequent on the hop, humulus, 
maple, acer, Sec. Rubigo, the ferrugineous powder sprinkled under the leaves, 
frequent in lady's mantle, alchemilla, &c. 

Clavus, when the seeds grow out into larger horns, black without, as in 
rye. This is called Ergot by the French writers. 

Ustulago, when the fruit, instead of seed, produces a black powder, as in 
barley, oats, &c. To which, perhaps, the honey-dew ought to have been 
added, and the canker ; in the former of which the nourishing fluid of the 
plant seems to be exuded by a retrograde motion of the cutaneous lymphatics, 
as in the sweating sickness of the last century. The latter is a phagedenic 
tilcer of the bark, very destructive to young apple-trees, and which, in cherry- 
trees, is attended with a deposition of gum-arabic, which often terminates 
in the death of the tree. 

Ergot's born. 1. 543. There is a disease frequently affects the rye in France, 
and sometimes in England in moist seasons, which is called Ergot, or horn- 
seed ; the grain becomes considerably elongated, and is either straight or 
crooked, containing black meal along with the white, and appears to be 
pierced by insects, which were probably the cause of the disease. Mr. du 
Hanu! ascribes it to this cause, and compares it to galls on oak-leaves. By the 
use of this bad grain amongst the poor, diseases have been produced, attended 
with great debility, and mortification of the extremities, both in France and 
England. Diet. Raison. arc. Siegle. Phil. Trans. 

On glass unneal'd. 1. 549. The glass-makers occasionally make what they 
call proofs, which are cooled hastily ; whereas the other glass vessels are re- 
moved from wanner ovens to cooler ones, and suffered to cool h . 
grees, which is called annealing, or nealing them. If an unnealed glass be 
scratched by even a grain of sand falling into it, it will seem to consider i f 
it for some time, or even a day, anil will then crack into a thousand pieces. 

The same happens to a smooth-surfaced lead-ore in Derbyshire ; the work- 
men having cleared a large face of it, scratch it with picks, and, in a few 
hours, man) tons of it crack to pieces, and fall with a k.nd ct > 
Whitehurst's Theor) of the Earth. 

ropped into cold wa er, called Prince Rupert's drops, explode, when 
. more suddenly nuked, b 
cause. Are the internal [*' ic btxliei 




( rt/Mrtrta ( ortt//tt/c ftffron 



Canto IV. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 127 

XIV. 1. " Sylphs! if with morn destructive Eurus springs, 
Oh! clasp the Harebel with your velvet wings; 
S reen with thick leaves the Jasmine as it blows, 555 

And shake die white rime from the shuddering Rose - r 
Whilst Amarvllis turns with graceful ease 
Her blushing beauties, and eludes the bre. 
Sylphs ! if at noon the Fritillary droops, 

With drops nectareous hang her nodding cups ; 560 

Thin clouds of gossamer in air display, 
And hide the vale's chaste Lily from the ray; 
Whilst Erythrina o'er her tender flower 
Bends all her leaves, and braves the sultry hour ; — 
Shield, when cold Hesper sheds his dewy light, 565 

Mimosa's soft sensations from the night ; 
Fold her thin foliage, close her timid flowers, 
And with ambrosial slumbers guard her bowers ; 
O'er each warm wall while Cerea flings her arms, 
And wastes on night's dull eye a blaze of charms. 570 

2. " Round her tall Elm with dewy fingers twine 
The gadding tendrils of the adventurous Vine ; 
From arm to arm in gay festoons suspend 
Her fragrant flowers, her graceful foliage bend; 



kept so far from each other by the external crust, that they are nearly in a 
state of repulsion, into which state they are thrown by their vibrations from 
any violence applied ? Or, like elastic balls in certain proportions suspended 
in contact with each other, can motion, once begun, be increased by their 
elasticity, till the whole explodes ? And can this power be applied to any 
mechanical purposes? 

With ambrosial slumbers. 1. 563. Many vegetables, during the night, do 
not seem to respire, but to sleep like the dormant animals and insects in win- 
ter. This appears from the mimosa and many other plants closing U\e upper 
sides of their leaves together in their sleep, and thus precluding that side of 
them from both light and air; and from many flowers closing up the polished 
«r interior side of their petals ; which we have also endeavoured to show to 
be a respiratory organ. 

The irritability of plants is abundantly evinced by the absorption and pul- 
monary circulation of their juices : their sensibility is shown by the approaches 
of the males to the females, and of the females to the males, in numerous in- 
stances ; and, as the essential circumstance of sleep consists in the temporary 
abolition of voluntary power alone, the sleep of plants evinces that they pos- 
sess voluntary power; which also indisputably appears in many of them, by 
closing their petals or their leaves during cold, or rain, or darkness, ©r from 
mechanic violence. 

Part I. T 



life BOTANIC GARDEN. p A rr I 

Swell with sweet juice her vermil orbs, and feed, 575 

Shrined in transparent pulp her pearly seed ; 

Hang round the Orange all her silver bells, 

And guard her fragrance with Hesperian spells : 

Bud after bud her polish'd leaves unfold, 

And load her branches with successive gold. 580 

So the learn'd Alchemist exulting sees 

Rise in his bright matrass Diana's trees ; 

Drop after drop, with just delay he pours 

The red-fumed acid on Potosi's ores; 

With sudden flash the fierce bullitions rise, 585 

And wide in air the gas phlogistic flies ; 

Slow shoot, at length, in many a brilliant mass,. 

Metallic roots across the netted glass; 

Branch after branch extend their silver stems. 

Bud into gold, and blossom into gems. 590 

" So sits enthroned in vegetable pride 
Imperial Kew by Thames's glittering side ; 
Obedient sails from realms unfurrow'd bring 
For her the unnamed progeny of spring ; 

Diana's trees. 1. 582. The chemists and astronomers, from the earliest an- 
tiquity, have used the same characters to represent the metals and the planets, 
which were most probably outlines or abstracts of the original hieroglyphic 
figures of Egypt. These afterwards acquired niches in their temples, and 
represented gods as well as metals and planets ; whence silver is called Di- 
ana, or the rnoon, in the books of Alchemy. 

■ The process for making Diana's silver tree is thus described by Lemeri. 
Dissolve one ounce of pure silver in acid of nitre, very pure, and moderately- 
Strong: mix this solution with about twenty ounces of distilled water; add 
to this two ounces of mercury, and let it remain at rest. In about four days 
there will form upon the mercury a tree of silver, with branches imitating 
vegetation. 

1. As the mercury has a greater affinity than silver with the nitrous acid, 
the silver becomes precipitated ; and, being deprived of the nitrous oxygenc 
by the mercury, sinks down in its metallic form and lustre. 2. Th 
tion between silver and mercury, which causes them readily to amalgamate 
together, occasions the precipitated silver to adhere to the surface of the 
mercury in preference to any other part of the vessel. 3. The attraction of 
the particles of the precipitated silver to each other causes the beginning 
branches to thicken and elongate into trees and shrubs rooted on the mer- 
cury. For other circumstances concerning this beautiful experiment, see Mr. 
Kcir's Chemical Dictionary, art. Arbor Dianx ; a work, perhaps, of greater 
utility to mankind than the lost Alexandrian Library, the continuation of 
Which is so eagerly expected by all who are occupied in the arts, or attached 
to the st... 



CaktoIV. ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 129 

Attendant Nymphs her dulcet mandates hear, 595 

And nurse in fostering arms the tender year, 
lant the young bulb, inhume the living seed, 
Prop the weak stem, the erring tendril lead ; 
Or fan in glass-built fanes the stranger flowers 
With milder gales, and steep with warmer showers* 600 

Delighted Thames through tropic umbrage glides, 
And flowers antarctic, bending o'er his tides ; 
Drinks the new tints, the sweets unknown inhales, 
And calls the sons of science to his vales. 
In one bright point admiring Nature eyes 60S 

The fruits and foliage of discordant skies, 
Twines the gay floret with the fragrant bough, 
And bends the wreath round George's royal brow, 
—Sometimes retiring from the public weal, 
One tranquil hour the Royal Partners steal ; 610 

Through glades exotic pass with step sublime, 
Or mark the growths of Britain's happier clime ; 
With beauty blossom'd, and with virtue blazed, 
Mark the fair Scions that themselves have raised ; 
Sweet blooms the Rose, the towering Oak expands, 615 

The Grace and Guard of Britain's golden lands. 

XV. " Sylphs! who, round earth on purple pinions borne, 
Attend the radiant chariot of the morn ; 
Lead the gay hours along the ethereal height, 
And on each dun meridian shower the light ; 620 

Sylphs ! who from realms of equatorial day 
To climes, that shudder in the polar ray, 
From zone to zone pursue on shifting wing, 
The bright perennial journey of the spring ; 
Bring my rich Balms from Mecca's hallow'd glades, 626 

Sweet flowers, that glitter in Arabia's shades ; 
Fruits, whose fair forms in bright succession glow, 
Gilding the banks of Arno, or of Po ; 
Each leaf, whose fragrant steam with ruby lip 
Gay China's nymphs from pictured vases sip ; 636 

Each spicy rind, which sultry India boasts, 
Scenting the night-air round her breezy coasts ; 
Roots, whose bold stems in bleak Siberia blow, 
And gem with many a tint the eternal snow ; 



130 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

Barks, whose broad umbrage high in ether waves 635 

O'er Andes' steeps, and hides his golden caves ; 

— And, where von oak extends his dusky shoots 

Wide o'er the rill, that bubbles from his roots ; 

Beneath whose arms, protected from the storm, 

A turf-built altar rears its rustic form; 640 

Sylphs! with religious hands fresh garlands twine, 

And deck with lavish pomp Hygeia's shrine. 

" Call with loud voice the Sisterhood, that dwell 
On floating cloud, wide wave, or bubbling well ; 
Stamp with charm'd foot, convoke the alarmed Gnomes 64-5 
From golden beds, and adamantine domes ; 
Each from her sphere with beckoning arm invite, 
Curl'd with red flame, the Vestal Forms of light ; 
Close all vour spotted wings, in lucid ranks 
Press with your bending knees the crowded banks, 650 

Cross vour meek arms, incline your wreathed brows, 
And win the Goddess with unwearied vows. 

" Oh, wave, Hygeia \ o'er Britannia's throne, 
Thy serpent-wand, and mark it for thy own ; 
Lead round her breezy coasts thy guardian trains, 655 

Her nodding forests, and her waving plains ; 
Shed o'er her peopled realms thy beamy smile, 
And with thy airy temple crown her isle !" 

The Goddess ceased, — and, calling from afar 
The wandering Zephyrs, joins them to her car ; 660 

Mounts with light bound, and, graceful, as she bends, 
Whirls the long lash, the flexile reign extends ; 
On whispering wheels the silver axle slides, 
Climbs into air, and cleaves the crystal tides ; 
Burst from its pearly chains, her amber hair 665 

Streams o'er her ivory shoulders, buoy'd in air ; 
Swells her white veil, with ruby clasp confined 
Round her fair brow, and undulates behind ; 
The lessening coursers rise in spiral rings, 
Pierce the slow-sailing clouds, unci stretch their shadowy wings. 



THE 

ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 



CONTENTS OF THE NOTES. 



T> Line- 

JK OSICRUCI AN machinery 73 

All bodies are immersed in the matter of heat. Particles of bodies do not 

touch each other 97" 

Gradual progress of the formation of the earth, and of plants and ani- 
mals. Monstrous births 101 
Fixed stars approach towards each other : they were projected from chaos. 

by explosion, and the planets projected from them 105 

An atmosphere of inflammable air above the common atmosphere prin- 
cipally about the poles 123 
Twilight fifty miles high. Wants further observations 126 
Immediate cause of volcanos from steam and other vapours. They pre- 
vent greater earthquakes 152 
Conductors of heat. Cold on the tops of mountains 176 
Phosphorescent light in the evening from all bodies 177 
Phosphoric light from calcined shells. Bolognian stone. Experiments 

of Beccari and Wilson 182 

Ignis fatuus doubtful 189 

Electric eel. Its electric organs. Compared to the electric Leyden phial 202 
Discovery of fire. Tools of steel. Forests subdued. Quantity of food 

increased by cookery 212 

Medusa originally an hieroglyphic of divine wisdom 218 

Cause of explosion from combined heat. Heat given out from air in re- 
spiration. Oxygene loses less heat when converted into nitrous acid 
than in any other of its combinations "226 

Sparks from the collision of flints are electric. From the collision of 

flint and steel are from the combustion of the steel 229 

Gun-powder described by Bacon. Its power. Should be lighted in the 

centre. A new kind of it. Levels the weak and strong 242 

Steam-engine invented by Savery. Improved by Newcomen. Perfected 

by Watt and Boulton 254 

Divine benevolence. The parts of nature not of equal excellence 278 

Mr. Boulton's steam-engine for the purpose of coining would save many 

lives from the executioner 281 

Labours of Hercules of great antiquity. Pillars of Hercules. Surface 
of the Mediterranean lower than the. Atlantic. Abyla and Calpe. 
Flood of Deucalion 297 



lj_ BOTANIC GARDEN Part I. 

Accumulation of electricity not from friction 335 

Mr. Bonnet's sensible electrometer 345 

Halo of saints is pictorial language 358 

We have a sense adapted to perceive heat but not electricity 365 

Paralytic limbs move by electric influence 367 

Death of Professor Ricliman by electricity 37S 

Lightning drawn from the clouds. How to be safe in thunder-storms 383 
Animal heat from air and respiration. Perpetual necessity of respira- 
tion. Spirit of animation perpetually renewed 401 
Cupid rises from the egg of night. Mrs. Cosway's painting of this sub- 
ject 413 
Western winds. Their origin. Warmer than south winds. Produce 

a thaw 430 

Water expands in freezing. Destroys succulent plants, not resinous 
ones. Trees in valleys more liable to injury. Fig-trees bent to the 
ground in winter 439 

Buds and bulbs are the winter cradle of the plant. Defended from frost 
and from insects. Tulip produces one flower-bulb and several leaf- 
bulbs, and perishes 460 
Matter of heat if different from light. Vegetables blanched by exclusion 
of light. Turn the upper surface of their leaves to the light. Water 
decomposed as it escapes from their pores. Hence vegetables purify 
air in the day time only 462 
Electricity forwards the growth of plants. Silk-worms electrized spin 

sooner. Water decomposed in vegetables, and by electricity 463 

Sympathetic inks which appear by heat, and disappear in the cold. 

Made from cobalt 487 

Star in Cassiope's chair 51.^ 

Ice-islands 100 fathoms deep. Sea-ice more difficult of solution. Ice 
evaporates, producing great cold. Ice-islands increase. Should be 
navigated into southern climates. Some ice-islands have floated south- 
wards 60 miles long. Steam attending them in warm climates S29 
Monsoon cools the sand of Abyssinia 547 
Ascending vapours are electrized plus, as appears from an experiment of 
Mr. Bennet. Electricity supports vapour in clouds. Thunder-showers 
from combination of inflammable and vital air 552 



CANTO II. 

Solar volcanos analogous to terrestrial and lunar ones. Spots of the sun 

are excavations 
Spherical form of the earth. Ocean from condensed vapour. Character 

of Mr. Whitehurst 
Granite the oldest part of the earth. Then lime-stone. And, lastly, 

clay, iron, coal, sand-stone. Three great concennic divisions of the 

globe 
Formation of primeval islands before the production of the moon. Pa- 
radise. The Golden Age. Rain-bow. Water of the sea originally 

fresh 
Venus rising from the sea, an hieroglyphic emblem of the production of 

the earth beneath the ocean 
First great volcanos in the central parts of the earth. From steam, in- 

flammable gas, and vital air. Present volcanos like mole-hille 



Pabt I. CONTENTS OF THE NOTE5. 1SS 

Moon has little or no atmosphere. Its ocean is frozen. Is not yet in- 
habited, but may be in time 82 

Earth's axis changed by the ascent of the moon. Its diurnal motion re- 
tarded. One great tide 84 

Lime-stone produced from shells. Spars with double refractions. Mar- 
ble. Chalk. 93 

Ancient statues of Hercules. Antinous. Apollo. Venus. Designs 
of Roubiliac. Monument of General Wade 101 

Statues of Mrs. Darner 113 

Morasses rest on lime-stone. Of immense extent 116 

Salts from animal and vegetable bodies decompose each other, except 
marine salt. Salt-mines in Poland. Timber does not decay in them. 
Rock-salt produced by evaporation from sea-water. Fossil shells in salt- 
mines. Salt in hollow pyramids. In cubes. Sea-water contains about 
one thirtieth of salt 119 

Nitre, native in Bengal and Italy. Nitrous gas combined with vital air 
produces red clouds, and the two airs occupy less space than one of 
them before, and give out heat. Oxygene and azote produce nitrous 
acid 143 

Iron from decomposed vegetables. Chalybeat springs. Fern-leaves in 
nodules of iron. Concentric spheres of iron nodules owing to polarity, 
like iron-filings arranged by a magnet. Great strata of the earth 
owing to their polarity 183 

Hardness of steel for took. Gave superiority to the European nations. 
Welding of steel. Its magnetism. Uses of gold 192 

Artificial magnets improved by Savery and Dr. Knight, perfected by Mr. 
Michel. How produced. Polarity owing to the earth's rotatory mo- 
tion. The electric fluid, and the matter of heat, and magnetism, 
gravitate on each other. Magnetism being the lightest, is found near- 
est the axis of the motion. Electricity produces northern lights by its 
centrifugal motion 193 

Acids from vegetable recrements. Flint has its acid from the new world. 
Its base in part from the old world, and in part from the new. Precious 
stones 215 

Diamond. Its great refraction of light. Its volatility by heat. If an 
inflammable body 22S 

Fires of the new world from fermentation. Whence sulphur and bitu- 
men by sublimation, the clay, coal, and flint remaining 275 

Colours not distinguishable in the enamel-kiln till a bit of dry wood is 
introduced 283 

Etrurian pottery prior to the foundation of Rome. Excelled in fine 
forms, and in a non-vitreous encaustic painting, which was lost till 
restored by Mr. Wedgwood. Still influences the taste of the inhabitants 291 

Mr. Wedgwood's cameo of a slave in chains, and of Hope 315 

Basso-relievos of two or more colours not made by the ancients. Invent- 
ed by Mr. Wedgwood 342 

Petroleum and naphtha have been sublimed. Whence jet and amber. 
They absorb air. Attract straws when rubbed. Electricity from elec- 
tron, the Greek name for amber 353 

Clefts in granite rocks in which metals are found. Iron and manganese 
found in all vegetables. Manganese in lime-stone. Warm springs 
from steam rising up the clefts of granite and lime-stone. Ponderous 
earth in lime-stone clefts and in granite. Copper, lead, iron, from de- 
scending materials. High mountains of granite contain no ores near 
their summits. Transmutation of metals. Of lead into calamy. 
Into silver 398 



HI BOTANIC GARDEN Pa»t I. 

Armies of Camb;. ses destroyed by famine and by sand-storms 435 

Whirling turrets of sand described and explained 478 

Granite shows iron as it decomposes. Marble decomposes. Immense 
quantity of charcoal exists in lime-stone. Volcanic slags decompose, 
and become clay 523 

Mill-stones raised by wooden pegs 524 

Hannibal made a passage by fire over the Al ps 534 

Passed tense of many words twofold, as driven or drove, spoken or 
spoke. A poetic license. 609 



CANTO III. 

Giouds consist of aqueous spheres, which do not easily unite like glo- 
bules of quick-silver, as may be seen in riding through water. Owing 
to electricity. Snow. Hail-stones rounded by attrition and dissolution 
of their angles. Not from frozen drops of water 15 

Dew on points and edges of grass, or hangs over cabbage-leaves. Needle 
floats on water 18 

Mists over rivers and on mountains Halo round the moon. Shadow 
of a church-steeple upon a mist. Dry mist, or want of transparency of 
the air, a sign of fair weather 20 

Tides on both sides of the earth. Moon's tides should be much greater 
than the earth's tides. The ocean of the moon is frozen 61- 

Spiral form of shells saves calcareous matter. Serves them as an organ 
of hearing. Calcareous matter produced from inflamed membranes. 
Colours of shells. Labradore-stone from mother-pearl. Fossil shells 
not now found recent 66 

Sea-insects like flowers. Actinia 81 

Production of pearls, not a disease of the fish. Crab's eyes. Reser- 
voirs of pearly matter 84 

Rocks of coral in the South Sea. Coralloid lime-stone at Linsel, and 
Coalbrook Dale 9(7 

Rocks thrown from mountains, ice from glaciers, and portions of earth, 
or morasses, removed by columns of water. Earth-motion in Shropshire. 
Water of wells rising above the level of the ground. St. Alkmond's 
well near Derby might be raised many yards, so as to serve the town. 
Well at Sheerness, and at Hartford in Connecticut llr> 

Monsoons attended with rain. Overflowing of the Nile. Vortex of ascend- 
ing air. Rising of the Dogstar announces the floods of the Nile. 
Anubis hung out upon their temples 139 

Situation exempt from rain. At the line in Lower Egypt. On the coast 
of Peru 138 

Giesar, a boiling fountain in Iceland. Water with great degrees of heat 
dissolves siliceous matter. Earthquake from steam 

Warm springs not from decomposed pyrites. From steam rising up fis- 
sures from great depths 1G6 

Buxton bath possesses 82 degrees of heat. Is improperly called a warm 
bath. A chill at immersion, and 'hen a. sensation of warmth, like the 
eye in an obscure room owing to increased sensibility of the skin 184 

Water compounded of pure air and inflammable air with as much mat- 
tei of heat as preserves it fluid. Perpetually decomposed by veget- 
ables in the sim's light, and recomposed in the atmosphere 



Part I. CONTENTS OF THE NOTES. 135 

Line 
Mythological interpretation of Jupiter and Juno designed as an emblem 

of the composition of water from two airs 260 

Death of Mrs. French 308 

To r.b of Mr. Brindley 341 

Invention of the pump. The piston lifts the atmosphere above it. The 
surrounding atmosphere presses up the water into the vacuum.- Man- 
ner in which a child sucks 366 
Air-cell in engines for extinguishing fire. Water dispersed by the ex- 
plosion of gun-powder. Houses preserved from fire by earth on the 
floors, by a second cieling of iron-plates or coarse mortar. Wood im- 
pregnated with alabaster or flint 406 
Muscular actions and sensations of plants 460 
River Achelous. Horn of Plenty 495 
Flooding lands defends them from vernal frosts. Some springs deposit 
calcareous earth. Some contain azotic gas, which contributes to pro» 
duce nitre. Snow water less serviceable 540 



CANTO IV. 

Cacalia produces much honey, that a part may be taken by insects with- 
out injury 2 
Analysis of common air. Source of azote. Of oxygene. Water de- 
composed by vegetable pcres and the sun's light. Blood gives out phlo- 
giston and receives vital air. Acquires heat and the vivifying principle 34 
Cupid and Psyche 48 
Simoom, a pestilential wind. Described. Owing to volcanic electricity. 

Not a whirlwind • .:• <> 65 

Contagion either animal or vegetable 82 

Thyrsis escapes the Plague 91 

Barometer and air-pumps. Dew on exhausting the receiver, though the 
hygrometer points to dryness. Rare air will dissolve, or acquire more 
heat, and more moisture, and more electricity 128 

Sound propagated best by dense bodies, as wood, and water, and earth. 

Fish in spiral shells all ear 176 

Discoveries of Dr. Priestley. Green vegetable matter. Pure air con- 
tained in the calces of metals, as minium, manganese, calamy, ochre 178 
Fable of Proserpine, an ancient chemical emblem 190 

Diving balloons supplied with pure air from minium. Account of one 

by Mr. Boyle 207 

Mr. Day. Mr. Spalding 229 

Capt. Pierce and his daughters 231 

Pestilential winds of volcanic origin. Jordan flows through a country 

of volcanos 306 

Change of wind owing to small causes. If the wind could be governed, 
the products of the earth would be doubled, and its number of inhabit- 
ants increased 320 
Mr. Kirwan's treatise on temperature of climates 354 
Seeds of plants. Spawn of fish. Nutriment lodged in seeds. Their 

preservation in their seed-vessels 36/ 

Fixed stars approach each other 381 

Fable of the Phoenix 389 

Plants visible within bulbs, and buds, and seeds 395 

Great egg of night 418 

Part I. U 



BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

Seeds shoot into the ground. Pith. Seed lobes. Starch converted into 

i Like animal chyle 423 

Light occas ons tne actions of vegetable muscles. Keeps them awake 434 
V i, Ngella. Vegetaole adultery in Collmsonia 472 

Strong v uid roots bound with wire, in part debarked, 

whence leal-buds converted into rlower-buds. Theory of this curious 
fact 479 

Branches bent 'o the horizon bear more fruit 
Ingraf ing of a spotted passion-flower produced spots upon the stock. 

App.e soft on one side and hard on the other 513 

C) prepediura assumes the form of a large spider to affright the humming- 
bird. Fly- - pnris. Willow-wren sucks the honey of the crown im- 
perial 535 
D seases of plants four kinds. Honey-dew 541 
Ergot, a disease of rye 543 
Glass unannealed. Its cracks owing to elasticity. One kind of lead-ore 

cracks into pieces. Prince Rupert's drops. Elastic balls 549 

Sleep of plants. Their irritability, sensibility, and voluntary motions 56fc 



BOTANIC GARDEN. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES, 



NOTE L— METEORS, 

Ethereal Powers ! ijou chade the shooting stars, 
Or yoke the vollied lightnings to ijour cars. 

Canto I. 1. 115. 

J HERE seem to be three concentric strata of our incumbent at- 
mosphere ; in which, or between them, are pi'oduced four kinds of 
meteors; lightning, shooting stars, fire-balls, and northern lights. 
First, the lower region of air, or that which is dense enough to resist, 
by the adhesion of its particles, the descent of condensed vapour, or 
clouds, which may extend from one to three or four miles high. In 
this region the common lightning is produced from the accumulation 
or defect of electric matter in those floating fields of vapour, either 
in respect to each other, or in respect to the earth beneath them, or 
the dissolved vapour above them, which is constantly varying both 
with the change of the form of the clouds, which thus evolve a greater 
or less surface ; and also with their ever-changing degree of conden- 
sation. As the lightning is thus produced in dense air, it proceeds 
but a short course, on account of the greater resistance which it en- 
counters, is attended with a loud explosion, and appears with a red 
light. 

2. The second region of the atmosphere I suppose to be that which 
has too little tenacity to support condensed vapour, or clouds ; but 
which yet contains invisible vapour, or water in aerial solution. This 
aerial solution of water differs from that dissolved in the matter of 
heat, as it is supported by its adhesion to the parties of air, and is 
not precipitated by cold. In this stratum it seems probable that the 
meteors called shooting stars are produced ; and that they consist of 
electric sparks, or lightning, passing from one region to another of 
these invisible fields of aero-aqueous solution. The height of these 
shooting stars has not yet been ascertained by sufficient observation. 



BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

Dr. Blagden thinks their situation is lower down in the atmosphcrr 
than that of fire-balls, which he- conjectures from their swift apparent 
motion, and ascribes their smallness to the more minute division ol 
the electric matter of which they are supposed to consist, owing to 
the greater resistance of the denser medium through which they pass, 
than that in which the fire-balls exist. Mr. Rrydone observed that 
the shooting stars appeared to him to be as high in the atmosphere, 
when he was near the summit of Mount JEina, as the) do when ob- 
served from the plain. Phil. Trans, vol. lxiii. 

As the stratum of air in which shooting stars are supposed to exist 
is much rarer than that in which lightning resides, and yet much den- 
ser than that in which fire-balls are produced, they will be attracted 
at a greater distance than the former, and at a less than the latter. 
From this rarity of the air, so small a sound will be produced by their 
explosion, as not to reach the lower parts of the atmosphere; their 
quantity of light, from their greater distance, being small, is never 
seen through dense air at all, and thence does not appear red, like 
lightning or fire-balls. There are no apparent clouds to emit or to 
attract them, because the constituent parts of these aero-aque- us re- 
gions may possess an abundance or deficiency of electric matter, and 
yet be in perfect reciprocal solution. And, lastly, their apparent 
train of light is probably owing only to a continuance of their impres- 
sion on the eye; as when a fire stick is whirled in the dark it gives 
the appearance of a complete circle of fire ; for these white trains of 
shooting stars quickly vanish, and do not seem to set any thing on fire 
in their passage, as seems to happen in the transit of fire-balls. 

3. The second region or stratum of air terminates, 1 suppose, vUiere 
the twilight ceases to be refracted, that is, where the air is 30C0 times 
rarer than at the surface of the earth ; and where it seems probable 
that the common air ends, and is surrounded by an atmosphere of in- 
flammable gas ten-fold raver than itself. In this region I believe fire- 
balls sometimes to pass, and at other times the northern lights t^ 
exist. One of these fire-balls, or draco volans, was observed bj Dr. 
Pringle, and many others, on Nov. 26, 1758, which was afterwards, 
estimated to have been a mile and a half in circumference, to have 
been about one hundred miles high, and to have moved towards the 
north with a velocity of near thirty miles in a second of time. This 
meteor had a real tail many miles long, which threw off sparks in it. 
COUrse, and the Whole exploded, v\itha sound like distant thunder. 
Phil. Trans, vol. li. 

Dr. Blagden has relates! the his;, n of an tteor, or 

fite-ball, which was seen the 18th of August, 1783, with many ingc 
njecturesi This was estimated to be I 
miles high, and to travel 1000 miles at th< 



Note 1. METEORS. 1S9 

twenty miles in a second. This fire-ball had likewise a real train of 
light left behind it in its passage, which varied in colour, and, in 
3ome part of its course, gave off sparks or explosions where it had 
been brightest ; and a dusky red streak remained visible perhaps a 
minute. Phil. Trans, vol. lxxiv. 

These fire-balls differ from lightning, and from shooting stars, in 
many remarkable circumstances ; as their very great bulk, being a 
mile and a half in diameter ; their travelling 1000 miles nearly hori- 
zontally ; their throwing off sparks in their passage ; and changing 
colours from bright blue to dusky red ; and leaving a train of fire be- 
hind them, continuing about a minute. They differ from the northern 
lights in not being diffused, but p assing from one point of the heavens 
to another in a defined line ; and this in a region above the crepuscu- 
lar atmosphere, where the air is 3000 times rarer than at the surface 
of the earth. There has not yet been even a conjecture which can 
account for these appearances ! — One I shall therefore hazard j 
which, if it does not inform, may amuse the reader. 

In the note on 1. 123, it was shown that there is probably a super- 
natant stratum of inflammable gas or hydrogene, over the common 
atmosphere ; and whose density at the surface, where they meet, must 
be at least ten times less than that upon which it swims ; like chemi- 
cal ether floating upon water, and perhaps without any real contact. 
1. In this region, where the aerial atmosphere terminates, and the 
inflammable one begins, the quantity of tenacity or resistance must 
be almost inconceivable ; in which a ball of electricity might pass 1000 
miles with greater ease than through a thousandth part of an inch of 
glass. 2. Such a ball of electricity passing between inflammable and 
common air, would set fire to them in a line as it passed along ; which 
would differ in colour according to the greater proportionate com- 
mixture of the two airs ; and from the same cause there might occur 
greater degrees of inflammation, or branches of fire, in some parts 
of its course. 

As these fire-balls travel in a defined line, it is pretty evident from 
the known laws of electricity, that they must be attracted ; and as 
they are a mile or more in diameter, they must be emitted from a 
large surface of electric matter ; because large knobs give larger sparks, 
less diffused, and more brightly luminous, than less ones or points, 
and resist more forcibly the emission of the electric matter. What 
is there in nature can attract them at so great a distance as 1000 miles, 
and so forcibly as to detach an electric spark of a mile diameter? 
Can volcanos, at the time of their eruptions, have this effect, as they 
are generally attended with lightning? Future observations must dis- 
cover these secret operations of nature ! As a stream of common air 
Is carried along with the passage of electric aura from one body to 



140 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

another, it is easy to conceive, that the common air and the inflam- 
mable air between which the fire-ball is supposed to pass, will be par- 
tially intermixed by being thus agitated, and so far as it becomes in- 
termixed it will take fire, and produce the linear flame and branching 
sparks above described. In this circumstance of their being attracted, 
and thence passing in a defined line, the fire-balls seem to differ from 
the coruscations of the aurora borealis, or northern lights, which pro- 
bably take place in the same iegi>n of the atmosphere ; where the 
common air exists in extreme tenuity, and is covered by a fatill rarer 
6phcrc of inflammable gas, ten times lighter than itself. 

As the electric streams, which constitute these northern lights, 
seem to be repelled or radiated from an accumulation of that fluid in 
the north, and not attracted like the fire-balls; this accounts for the 
diffusion of their light, as well as the silence of their passage ; while 
their variety of colours, and the permanency of them, and even the 
breadth of them in different places, may depend on their setting on 
fire the mixture of inflammable and common air through which they 
pass ; as seems to happen in the transit of the fire-balis. 

It was observed by Dr. Priestley, that the electric shock taken 
through inflammable air was red, i:i common air it is blueish. To these 
circumstances perhaps some of the colours of the northern lights may 
bear analogy ; though the density of the medium through which light 
is seen must principally vary its colour, as is well explained by Mr. 
Morgan. Phil. Trans, vol. lxxv. Hence lightning is red when seen 
through a dark cloud, or near the horizon ; because the more refran- 
. gible rays cannot permeate so dense a medium. But the shooting 
stars consist of white light, as they are generally seen on clear nights, 
and nearly vertical ; in other situations their light is probably too faint 
to come to us. But as in some remarkable appearances of the northern 
lights, as in March, 1716, all the prismatic colours were seen quickly 
to succeed each other, these appear to have been owing to real com- 
bustion ; as the density of the interposed medium could not be sup- 
posed to change so frequently ; and therefore these colours must have 
been owing to different degrees of heat, according to Mr. Morgan's 
theory of combustion. In Smith's Optics, p. 69, the prismatic colours, 
and optical deceptions of the northern lights, are described by Mr. 
Cotes. 

The Torricellian vacuum, if perfectly free from air, is said, by Mr. 
Morgan and others, to be a perfect non-conductor. This circum- 
therefore would preclude the electric streams from rising 
at-.. v.- the atmosphere. But as Mr. Morgan did not try to pass an 
electric shock through a vacuum, and as air, or something containing 
air, surrounding the transit of electricity, max In- necessary to the 
production of light, the conclusion may perhaps still be dubious, U, 



Note 1. METEORS. 1*1 

however, the streams of the northern lights were supposed to rise 
above our atmosphere, they would only be visible at each extremity 
of their course; where they emerge from, or are again immerged 
hito the atmosphere ; but not in their journey through the vacuum ; 
for the absence of electric light in a vacuum is sufficiently proved by 
the common experiment of shaking a barometer in the dark ; the 
electricity, produced by the friction of the mercury in the glass at its 
top, is luminous if the barometer has a little air in it; but there is no 
light if the vacuum be complete. 

The aurora borealis, or northern dawn, is very ingeniously account- 
ed for by Dr. Franklin, on principles of electricity. He premises 
the following electric phenomena : 1. That all new-fallen snow has 
much positive electricity standing on its surface. 2. That about twelve 
degrees of latitude round the poles are covered with a crust of eternal 
ice, which is impervious to the electric fluid. 3. That the dense part 
of the atmosphere rises but a few miles high ; and that in the rarer 
parts of it the electric fluid will pass to almost any distance. 

Hence he supposes there must be a great accumulation of positive 
electric matter on the fresh-fallen snow in the polar regions ; which, 
not being able to pass through the crust of ice into the earth, must 
rise into the rare air of the upper parts of our atmosphere, which 
will the least resist its passage ; and passing towards the equator, de- 
scend again into the denser atmosphere, and thence into the earth in 
silent streams. And that many of the appearances attending these 
lights are optical deceptions, owing to the situation of the eye that 
beholds them ; which makes all ascending parallel lines appear to 
converge to a point. 

The idea, above explained in note on 1. 123, of the existence of a 
sphere of inflammable gas over the aerial atmosphere, would much 
favour this theory of Dr. Franklin ; because in that case the dense 
aerial atmosphere would rise a much less height in the polar regions, 
diminishing almost to nothing at the pole itself; and thus give an easier 
passage to the ascent of the electric fluid. And from the great dif- 
ference in the specific gravity of the two airs, and the velocity of the 
earth's rotation, there must be a place between the poles and the equa- 
tor, where the superior atmosphere of inflammable gas would termi- 
nate ; which would account for these streams of the aurora borealis 
not appearing near the equator : add to this, that it is probable the 
electric fluid may be heavier than the magnetic one ; and will thence., 
by the rotation of the earth's surface, ascend over the magnetic one 
by its centrifugal force; and may thus be induced to rise through the 
thin stratum of aerial atmosphere over the poles. See note on Canto 
II. 1. 193. I shall have occasion again to mention this great accumu- 
lation of inflammable air over the poles ; and to conjecture that these 



L4A BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

northern lights may be produced by the union of inflammable with 
common air, without the assistance of the electric spark to throw them 
into combu tion. 

The antiquity of the appearance of northern lights has been doubted, 
as none were recorded in our annals since the remarkable 01 
1-J, 137 1, till another remarkable one on March 6, 1716, and the 
three following nights, which was seen at the same time in Ireland, 
Russia, and Poland, extending near 30 degrees of longitude, and 
from about the 50th degree of latitude over almost all the north of 
Europe. There is, however, reason to believe them of remote anti- 
quity, though inaccurately described; thus the following curious pas- 
sage from the book of Maccabees (B. II. c. v.) is such a description of 
them, as might probably be given by an ignorant and alarmed people. 
" Through all the city, for the space of almost forty days, there were 
seen horsemen running in the air, in cloth of gold, and armed with 
lances, like a band of soldiers; and troops of horsemen in array en- 
countering and running one against another, with shaking of shields 
and multitude of pikes, and drawing of swords, and casting of dart«^ 
and glittering of golden ornaments and harness." 



NOTE II.— PRIMARY COLOURS. 

Cling 1 round the aerial bow with firisms bright* 
And) Jdea.icd, untwist the sevenfold threads of light. 
Canto I. 1. 11~. 

THE manner in which the rainbow is produced, was, in some mea- 
sure, understood before Sir Isaac Newton had discovered his theory 
of colours. The first person who expressly showed the rainbow to be 
formed by the reflection of the sun-beams from drops of falling rain, 
was Antonio de Dominis. This was afterwards more fully and dis- 
tinctly explained by Des Cartes. But what caused the diversity of its 
colours was not then understood ; it was reserved for the immortal 
Newton to discover that the rays of light consisted of seven combined 
colours of different refrangibility, which could be separated at plea- 
sure by a wedge of glass. Pemberton's View of Newton. 

Sir Isaac Newton discovered that the prismatic spectrum was com- 
posed of seven colours, in the following proportions : violet 80, indigo 
40, blue 60, green 60, yellow 48, orange 27, red >J. If ail these 
colours be painted on a circular card, in the proportion above men- 
tioned, and tin card be rapidly whirled on its centre, they 
ih the pyc the sensation of white. And any one of the 



Note 2. PRIMARY COLOURS. 14$ 

be imitated by painting a card with the two colours which are con- 
tiguous to it, in the same proportions as in the spectrum, and whirl- 
ing them in the same manner. ■— 

My ingenious friend. Mr. Galton, of Birmingham, ascertained, in 
this manner, by a set of experiments, the following propositions ; the 
truth of which he had preconceived from the above data. 

3. Any colour in the prismatic spectrum may be imitated by a 
mixture of the two colours contiguous to it. 

2. If any three successive colours in the prismatic spectrum are 
mixed, they compose only the second or middlemost colour. 

3. If any four successive colours in the prismatic spectrum be 
mixed, a tint similar to a mixture of the second and third colours will 
be produced, but not precisely the same, because they are not in the 
same proportion. 

4. If, beginning with any colour in the circular spectrum, you take 
of the second colour a quantity equal to the first, second and third ; 
and add to that the fifth colour, equal in quantity to the fourth, fifth 
and sixth ; and with these combine the seventh colour in the propor- 
tion it exists in the spectrum, white will be produced. Because the 
first, second and third compose only the second ; and the fourth, 
fifth and sixth compose only the fifth ; therefore, if the seventh be 
added, the same effect is produced as if all the seven were employed- 

5. Beginning with any colour in the circular spectrum, if you take 
a tint composed of a certain proportion of the second and third (equal 
in quantity to the first, second, third and fourth), and add to this 
the sixth colour, equal in quantity to the fifth, sixth and seventh, 
white will be produced. 

From these curious experiments of Mr. Galton, many phenomena 
in the chemical changes of colours may probably become better un- 
derstood ; especially if, as I suppose, the same theory must apply to 
transmitted colours as to reflected ones. Thus it is well known, that 
if the glass of manganese, which is a tint probably composed of violet 
and indigo, be mixed in a certain proportion with the glass of lead, 
which is yellow, that the mixture becomes transparent. Now, from 
Mr. Galton 's experiments it appears, that in reflected colours such 
a mixture would produce white, that is, the same as if all the colours 
were reflected. And, therefore, in transmitted colours the same 
circumstances must produce transparency, that is, the same as if 
all the colours were transmitted. For the particles which constitute 
the glass of manganese will transmit red, violet, indigo, and blue ; 
and those of the glass of lead will transmit orange, yellow, and green; 
hence all the primary colours, by a mixture of these glasses, become 
transmitted, that is, the glass becomes transparent. 

Mr. G.rton has further observed, that five successive prismatic 

Part I. X 



A4 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part L 

colours may be combined in such proportions as to produce but one 
colour, a circumstance which might be of consequence in the art of 
painting. For if you begin at any part of the circular spectrum above 
described, and take the first, second and third colours, in the pro- 
portions in which they exist in the spectrum, these will compose only 
the second colour, equal in quantity to the first, second and third ; 
add to these the third, fourth and fifth, in the proportion they exist 
in the spectrum, and these will produce the fourth colour, equal in 
quantity to the third, fourth and fifth. Consequently this is precisely 
the same thing as mixing the second and fourth colours only ; which 
mixture would only produce the third colour. Therefore, if you 
combine the first, second, fourth and fifth, in the proportions in 
which they exist in the spectrum, with double the quantity of the 
third colour, this third colour will be produced. It is probable that 
many of the unexpected changes in mixing colours on a painter's pal- 
let, as wel as in the more fluid chemical mixtures, may depend on 
these principles rather than on a new arrangement or combination of 
their minute particles. 

Mr. Gait™ further observes, that white may universally be pro- 
duced by the combination of one prismatic colour, and a tint interme- 
diate to two others. Which tint may he distinguished by a name 
compounded of the two colours to which it is intermediate. Thus white 
is produced by a mixture of red with blue-green. Of orange with 
indigo-blue. Of yellow with violet-indigo. Of green with red-violet. 
Of blue with orange-red. Of indigo with yellow-orange. Of violet 
with green-yellow. Which, he further remarks, exactly coincides 
with the theory and facts mentioned by Dr. Robert Darwin, of Shrews- 
bury, in his account of ocular spectra ; who has shown, that when 
one of these contrasted colours has been long viewed, a spectrum, or 
appearance of the other, becomes visible in the fatigued eye. Phil. 
Trans, vol. lxxvi. for the year 1786. 

These experiments of Mr. Galton might much assist the copper- 
plate printers of callicocs and papers in colours, as three colours, or 
more, might be produced by two copper-plates. Thus, suppose some 
yellow figures were put on by the first plate, and upon some parts of 
these yellow figures, and on other parts of the ground, blue was laid 
on h\ another copper-plate. The three colours of yellow, blue and 
green might be produced, as green leaves with yellow and bhai 



( I* ) 

NOTE III.— COLOURED CLOUDS. 

Eve's silken couch with gorgeous lints adorn, 
And Jire the arrowy throne of rising Morn. 
Canto 



Canto I. 1. 119. 



THE rays froTi the rising and setting sun are refracted by out 
spherical atmosphere ; hence the most refrangible rays, as the violet, 
indigo, and blue, are reflected in greater quantities from the morning 
and evening skies ; and the least refrangible ones, as red and orange, 
are last seen about the setting sun. Hence Mr. Beguelin observed, 
that the shadow of his finger on his pocket-book was much bluer in 
the morning and evening, when the shadow was ab^ut eight times as 
long as the body from which it was projected. Mr. Melville obseiwes, 
that the blue rays being more refrangible, are bent down in the even- 
ings by our atmosphere ; while the red and orange, being less re- 
frangible, continue to pass on, and tinge the morning and evening 
clouds with their colours. See Priestley's History of Light and Co- 
lours, p. 440. But as the particles of air, like those of water, are 
themselves blue, a blue shadow may be seen at all times of the day, 
though much more beautifully in the mornings and evenings, or by 
means of a candle in the middle of the day. For if a shadow on a 
piece of white paper is produced by placing your finger between the 
paper and a candle in the day light, the shadow will appear very- 
blue ; the yellow light of the candle upon the other parts of the paper 
apparently deepens the blue by its contrast, these colours being oppo- 
site to each other, as explained in note II. 

Colours are produced from clouds or mists by refraction, as well as 
by reflection. In riding in the night over an unequal country, I ob- 
served a very beautiful coloured halo round the moon, whenever I 
was covered with a few feet of mist, as I ascended from the vallies, 
which ceased to appear when I rose above the mist. This I suppose 
was owing to the thinness of the stratum of mist in which I was im- 
mersed , had it been thicker, the colours refracted by the small drops, 
of which a fog consists, would not have passed through it down to my 
eye. 

There is a bright spot seen on the cornea of the eye, when we face 
a window, which is much attended to by portrait painters ; this is the 
light reflected from the spherical surface of the polished cornea, and 
brought to a focus : if the observer is placed in this focus, he sees the 
im^ge of the window ; if he is placed before or behind the focus, he 
only sees a luminous spot, which is more luminous, and of less extent, 
the nearer he approaches to the focus. The luminous appearance of 



146 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part J. 

the eyes of animals in the dusky corners of a room, or in holes in the 
earth, may arise, in some instances, from the same principle; viz. 
the reflection of the light from the spherical cornea, which will be 
coloured red or blue, in some degree, by the morning, evening, or 
meridian light, or by the objects from which that light is previously 
reflected. In the cavern at Colebrook Dale, where the mineral tar 
exudes, the eves of the horse which was drawing a cart from within 
towards the mouth of it, appeared like two balls of phosphorus, when 
he was above 100 yards off, and for a long time before any other part 
of the animal was visible. In this case I suspect the luminous ap- 
pearance to have been owing to the light which had entered the eye 
being reflected from the back surface of the vitreous humour, and 
thence emerging again in parallel rays from the animal's eye, as it 
does from the back surface of the drops of the rainbow, and from the 
water-drops which lie, perhaps without contact, on cabbage -leaves, 
and have the brilliancy of quick-silver. This accounts for this lumi- 
nous appearance being best seen in those animals which have large 
apertures in their iris, as in cats and horses, and is the only p 
ble in obscure places, because this is a better reflecting surface than 
any other part of the animal. If any of these emergent rays from the 
animal's eye can be supposed to have been reflected from the choroid 
coat, through the semi-transparent retina, this would account for the 
coloured glare of the eyes of dogs, or cats, and rabbits, in dark corners. 



NOTE IV.— COMETS. 

Alarm with comet-blaze the safifihire filain, 

The wan stars glimmering through its silver train. 

Canto I. 1. 133. 

THERE have been many theories invented to account for the tails 
of comets. Sir Isaac Newton thinks that they consist of rare vapours 
raised from the nucleus of the comet, and so rarefied by the sun's heat 
as to have their general gravitation diminished, and that they, in con- 
sequence, ascend opposite to the sun, and from thence reflect the rays 
of light. Dr. Hallcy compares the light of the tails of comets to th< 
streams of the aurora borealis, and other electric effluvia. Phil. 
Trans. No 347. 

Dr. Hamilton observes, that the light of small stars is seen undi- 
minished through both the light of the tails of comets and of the 
aurora borealis, and has farther illustrated their electric analogy ; and 
adds, that the tails of comets consist of a lucid self-shining substance) 



Note 4. COMETS. 147 

which has not the power of refracting or reflecting the rays of light. 
Essays. 

The tail of the comet of 1744 at one time appeared to extend above 
16 degrees from its body, and must have thence been above twenty- 
three millions of miles long. And the comet of 1680, according to the 
calculations of Dr. Halley, on November the 11th, was not above one 
semi-diameter of the earth, or less than 4000 miles to the northward 
of the way of the earth ; at which time had the earth been in that part 
of its orbit, what might have been the consequence i No one would 
probably have survived to have registered the tremendous effects. 

The comet of 1531, 1607, and 1682, having returned in the year 
1759, according to Dr. Halley's prediction in the Phil. Trans, for 
1705, there seems no reason to doubt that all the other comets will 
return after their proper periods. Astronomers have in general ac- 
quiesced in the conjecture of Dr. Halley, that the comets of 1532, 
and 1661, are one and the same comet, from the similarity of the 
elements of their orbits, and were, therefore, induced to expect its 
return to its perihelium in 1789. As this comet is liable to be disturbed, 
in its ascent from the sun, by the planets Jupiter and Saturn, Dr. 
Maskelyne expected its return to its perihelium in the beginning of the 
year 1789, or the latter end of the vear 1788, and certainly some time 
before the 27th of April, 1789 ; which prediction has not been fulfilled. 
Phil. Trans, vol. lxxvi. 

As the comets are small masses of matter, and pass in their peri- 
helion very near the sun, and become invisible to us, on these accounts, 
in a short space of time, their number has not yet been ascertained, 
and will probablv increase with the improvement of our telescopes. 
M. Bode has given a table of 72 comets, whose orbits are already 
calculated ; of these 60 pass within the earth's orbit, and only twelve 
■without it ; and most of them appear between the orbits of Venus and 
Mercury, or nearlv midway between the sun and earth ; from whence, 
and from the planes of their orbits being inclined to that of the earth 
and other planets in all possible angles, they are believed to be less 
liable to interfere with, or injure each other. M. Bode afterwards 
inquires into the nearest approach it is possible for each of the known 
comets to make towards the earth's orbit. He finds that only three of 
them can come within a distance equal to two or three times the dis- 
tance of the moon from it ; and then adds the great improbability, that 
the earth should be in that dangerous point of its orbit, at the instant 
when a comet, which may have been absent some centuries, passes so 
rapidly past it. Historie de l'Academ. Royal. Berlin. 1792, 



( 14S ) 

NOTE V.— SUN'S RAYS. 

Or give the Sun's phlogistic orb to roll. 

Canto 1. 1. 136. 

THE dispute among philosophers about phlogiston is not concerning 
the existence of an infl im triable, principle, but rather whether there 
be one or mure inflammable principles. The disciples of Stahh which 
till lately included the whole chemical world, believed in the identity 
of phlogiston in all bodies which would flame or calcine. The disci- 
ples of Lavoisier pay homage to a plurality of phlogistons, under the 
various names of charcoal, sulphur, metals, Sec. Whatever will unite 
\i\\h fmre air, and thence compose an acid, is esteemed, in this inge- 
nious theory, to be a different kind of phlogistic or inflammable body. 
At the same time there remains a doubt whether these inflammable 
bodies, as metals, sulphur, charcoal, Sec. may not be compounded 
of the same phlogiston along with some other material yet undisco- 
vered, and thus an unity of phlogiston exist, as in the theory of Stahl, 
though very differently applied in the explication of chemical pheno- 
mena. 

Some modern philosophers are of opinion, that the sun is the great 
fountain from which the earth and other planets derive all the phlo- 
giston which thev possess ; and that this is formed by the combination 
of the solar rays with all opake bodies, but particularly with the leaves 
of vegetables, which they suppose to be organs adapted to absorb 
them. And that as animals receive their nourishment from vegetables, 
they also obtain, in a secondary manner, their phlogiston from the 
sun. And, lastly, as great masses of the mineral kingdom, which 
have been found in the thin crust of the earth which human labour has 
penetrated, have evidently been formed from the recrements of animal 
and vegetable bodies, these also arc supposed thus to have derived their 
phlogiston from the sun. 

Another opinion concerning the sun's rays is, that they are not lumi- 
nous till they arrive at our atmosphere ; and that there uniting with 
some part of the air, thev produce combustion, and light is emitted; 
and that an ethereal acid, yet undiscovered, is formed from this 
combustion. 

The more probable opinion is, perhaps, that the sun is a phlogistk 
mass of mutter, whose surface is in a state of combustion, which, 
like other burning bodies, emits light, with immense velocity, in all 
directions; that these rays of light act upon all opake bodies, and, 
combining with them, either displace <>r produce their elementary 
beat, and become chemically combined with the phlogistic part I ( 



Xote 6. CENTRAL FIRES. 149 

them ; for light is given out when phlogistic bodies unite with the oxy- 
genous principle of the air, as in combustion, or in the reduction of 
metallic calxes ; thus in presenting to the flame of a candle a letter- 
wafer (if it be coloured with red lead) at the time the red lead becomes 
a metallic drop, a flash of light is perceived. Dr. Alexander Wil- 
son very ingeniously endeavours to prove, that the sun is only in a state 
of combustion on its surface, and that the dark spots seen on the disk 
are excavations or caverns through the luminous crust, some of which 
are 4000 miles in diameter. Phil. Trans. 1774. Of this I shall have 
occasion to speak again . 



NOTE VI.— CENTRAL FIRES. 

Pound her still centre tread the burning soil, 
And watch the billowy Lavas as they boil. 

Canto 1. 1. 1S9. 

M. De Mairan, in a paper published in the Histoire de PAcade- 
mie de Sciences, 1765, has endeavoured to show, that the earth re- 
ceives but a small part of the heat which it possesses from the sun's 
rays, but is principally heated by fires within itself. He thinks the sun 
is the cause of the vicissitudes of our seasons of summer and winter, by 
a very small quantity of heat in addition to that already residing in the 
earth, which, by emanations from the centre to the circumference, 
renders the surface habitable, and without which, though the sun was 
constantly to illuminate two thirds of the globe at once, with a heat 
equal to that at the equator, it would soon become a mass of solid ice. 
His reasonings and calculations on this subject are too long and too in- 
tricate to be inserted here, but are equally curious and ingenious, and 
carry much conviction along with them. 

The opinion that the centre of the earth consists of a large mass of 
burning lava, has been espoused by Boyle, Boerhaave, and many other 
philosophers. Some of whom, considering its supposed effects on vege- 
tation and the formation of minerals, have called it a second sun. 
There are many arguments in support of this opinion. 1. Because 
the power of the sun does not extend much beyond ten feet deep into 
the earth, all below being, in winter and summer, always of the same 
degree of heat, viz. 48, which being much warmer than the mildest 
frost, is supposed to be sustained by some internal distant fire. Add 
to this, however, that from experiments made some years ago by Dr. 
Franklin, the spring-water at Philadelphia appeared to be of 52 of 
heat, which seems farther to confirm this opinion, since the climates 



150 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part i. 

in North-America are supposed to be colder than those of Europe 
under similar degrees of latitude. 2. M. De Luc, in going 1359 feet 
perpendicular into the mines of Hartz, on July the 5th. 1778, on a 
very fine day, found the air at the bottom a little warmer than at the 
top of the shaft. Phil. Trans, vol. lxix. p. 488. In the mines in 
Hungary, which are 500 cubits deep, the heat becomes very trouble- 
some when the miners get below 480 feet depth. Mori nun de I.ocis 
subter. p. 131. But as some other deep mines, as mentioned by Mr. 
Kirwan, are said to possess but the common heat of the earth; and 
as the crust of the globe, thus penetrated by human labour, is so thin 
compared with the whole, no certain deduction can be made from 
these facts on either side of the question. S. The warm-springs in 
many parts of the earth, at great distance from any volcanos, seem 
to originate from the condensation of vapours arising from water which 
is boiled by subterraneous fires, and cooled again in their passage 
through a certain length of the colder soil ; for the theory of chemical 
solution will not explain the equality of their heat at all seasons, and 
through so many centuries. See note on Fucus, in vol. ii. See a let- 
ter on this subject in Mr. Pilkinton's View of Derbyshire, from Dr. 
Darwin. 4. From the situations of volcanos, which are always found 
upon the summit of the highest mountains. For as these mountains 
have been lifted up, and lose several of their uppermost strata as they 
rise, the lowest strata of the earth yet known appear at the tops of 
the highest hills ; and the beds of the volcanos upon these hills must, 
in consequence, belong to the lowest strata of the earth, consisting, 
perhaps, of granite or basaltes, which were produced before the ex- 
istence of animal or vegetable bodies, and might constitute the original 
nucleus of the earth, which I have supposed to have been projected 
from the sun ; hence the volcanos themselves appear to be spira- 
cula, or chimneys, belonging to great central fires. It is probably 
owing to the escape of the elastic vapours from these spiracula, that 
the modern earthquakes are of such small extent compared with those 
of remote antiquity, of which the vestiges remain all over the globe. 
5. The great size and height of the continents, and the great size and 
depth of the South Sea, Atlantic, and other oceans, evince that the 
first earthquakes, which produced these immense changes in the globe, 
must have been occasioned by central fires. 6. The very distant 
and expeditious communication of the shocks of some great earth- 
quakes. The earthquake at Lisbon, in 1755, was perceived in Scot- 
land, in the Peak of Derbyshire, and in many other distant parts of 
Europe. The percussions of it travelled with about the velocity of 
sound, viz. about thirteen miles in a minute. The earthquake in 1693 
extended 2600 leagues. (Goldsmith's History.) These phenomena 
arc easily explained if the central parts of the earth consist of a fluid 



Note 7. ELEMENTARY HEAT. 15%. 

lava, as a percussion on one part of such a fluid mass would be feh on 
Other pavts of its confining vault, like a stroke on a fluid contained in 
a bladder, which, however gentle on one side, is perceptible to the 
hand placed on the other ; and the velocity with which such a con- 
cussion would travel, would be that of sound, or thirteen miles in a 
minute. For further information on this part of the subject, the rea- 
der is referred to Mr. Michel's excellent treatise on earthquakes in 
the Phil. Trans, vol. li. 7. That there is a cavity at the centre of 
the earth is made probable by the late experiments on the attraction 
of mountains, by Mr. Maskelyne, who supposed, from other consider- 
ations, that the density of the earth near the surface should be five 
times less than its mean density. Phil. Trans, vol. lxv. p. 498. But 
found from the attraction of the mountain Schehallien, that it is pro- 
bable the mean density of the earth is but double that of the hill. 
Ibid. p. 532. Hence, if the first supposition be well founded, there 
would appear to be a cavity at the centre of considerable magnitude, 
from whence the immense beds and mountains of lava, loadstone, ba- 
saltes, granite, &c. have been protruded. 8. The variation of the 
compass can only be accounted for by supposing the central parts of 
the earth to consist of a fluid mass, and that part of this fluid is iron, 
which, requiring a greater degree of heat to bring it into fusion than 
glass or other metals, remains a solid ; and the vis inertia of this 
fluid mass, with the iron in it, occasions it to perform fewer revolu- 
tions than the crust of solid earth over it, and thus it is gradually left 
behind, and the place where the floating iron resides is pointed to by 
'.he direct or retrograde motions of the magnetic needle. This seems 
to bavn been nearly the opinion of Dr. Halley and Mr. Elder, 



NOTE VII— ELEMENTARY HEAT. 

Or ti/ikerc on afihere in widening waves exfiand, 
And glad with genial warmth the incumbent land. 

Canto I. 1. 142 f 

A CERTAIN quantity of heat seems to be combined with all 
bodies, besides the sensible quantity which gravitates like the electric 
fluid amongst them. This combined heat, or latent heat of Dr. Black, 
when set at liberty by fermentation, inflammation, crystallization, 
freezing, or other chemical attractions, producing new combination^ 
passes as a fluid element into the surrounding bodies. And by thaw- 
ing, diffusion of neutral salts in water, melting, and other chemical 

Part I. Y 



iS2 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part i. 

solutions, a portion of heat is attracted from the bodies in the vici- 
nity, and enters into or becomes combined with the new solutions. 

Hence a combir.aiioii of metals with acids, of essential oils and 
acids, of alcohol and water, of acids and water, give out heat ; whilst 
a solutioji of snow in water or in acids, and of neutral salts in water, 
attracts heat from the surrounding bodies. So the acid of nitre mixed 
with oil of cloves unites with it, and produces a most violent flame ; 
the same acid of nitre poured on snow instantly dissolves it, and pro- 
duces the greatest degree of cold yet known, by which, at Peters- 
burgh, quicksilver was first frozen in 1760. 

Water may be cooled below 32 degrees without being frozen, if it 
be placed on a solid floor, and secured from agitation ; but when thus 
cooled below the freezing point, the least agitation turns part of it 
suddenly into ice, and when this sudden freezing takes place, a ther- 
mometer placed in it instantly rises, as some heat is given out in the 
act of congelation, and the ice is thus left with the same sensible de- 
gree of cold as the water had possessed before it was agitated, but is, 
nevertheless, now combined with less latent heat. 

A cubic inch of water thus cooled down to 32 degrees, mixed with 
an equal quantity of boiling water at 212 degrees, will cool it to the 
middle number between these two, or to 122. But a cubic inch of 
ice, whose sensible cold also is but 32, mixed with an equal quantity 
of boiling water, will cool it six times as much as the cubic inch of 
cold water above-mentioned, as the ice not only gains its share of the 
sensible or gravitating heat of the boiling water, but attracts to itself 
also, and combines with the quantity of latent heat which it had lost 
at the time of its congelation. 

So boiling water will acquire but 212 degrees of heat under the 
common pressure of the atmosphere ; but the steam raised from it by 
its expansion, or by its solution in the atmosphere, combines with and 
carries away a prodigious quantity of heat, which it again parts with 
on its condensation, as is seen in common distillation, where the large 
quantity of water in the worm tub is so soon heated. Hence the eva- 
poration of ether on a thermometer soon sinks the mercury below 
freezing, and hence a warmth of the air in winter frequently succeeds 
a shower. 

When the matter of heat, or calorique, is set at liberty from its 
combinations, as by inflammation, it passes into the surrounding bo- 
dies, which possess different capacities of acquiring their share of 
the loose or sensible heat; thus a pint measure o( cold water at 48 
degrees, mixed with a pint of boiling water at 212 degrees, wdl cool 
it to the degree between these two numbers, or to 154 degrees, but it 
requires two pint measures of quicksilver at 48 degrees of heat, to 
[lint of water as above. These, and other curious experi- 



Note 7. ELEMENTARY HEAT. 15., 

merits are adduced by Dr. Black, to evince the existence of combined 
or latent heat in bodies, as has been explained by some of his pupils, 
and weil illustrated by Dr. Crawford. The world has long been in 
expectation of an account of his discoveries on this subject by the 
celebrated author himself. 

As this doctrine of elementary heat in its fluid and combined state 
is not yet universally received, I shall here add two arguments in sup- 
port of it, drawn from different sources, viz. from the heat given out 
or absorbed by the mechanical condensation or expansion of the air, 
and perhaps of other bodies, and from the analogy of the various 
phenomena of heat with those of electricity. 

I. If a thermometer be placed in the receiver of an air-pump, and 
the air hastily exhausted, the thermometer will sink some degrees, 
and the glass become steamy ; the same occurs in hastily admitting a 
part of the air again. This I suppose to be produced by the expan-. 
sion of part of the air, both during the exhaustion and re-admission 
of it ; and that the air so expanded becomes capable of attracting 
from the bodies in its vicinity a part of their heat; hence the vapours 
contained in it, and the glass receiver, are for a time colder, and the 
steam is precipitated. That the air thus parts with its moisture from 
the cold occasioned by its rarefaction, and not simply by the rarefac- 
tion itself, is evident, because, in a minute or two, the same rarefied 
air will again take up the dew deposited on the receiver ; and because 
water will evaporate sooner in rare than in dense air. 

There is a curious phenomenon, similar to this, observed in the foun- 
tain of Hiero, constructed on a large scale at the Chemnicensian mines 
in Hungary. In this machine, the air in a large vessel is compressed 
by a column of water 260 feet high, a stop-cock is then opened, and as 
the air issues out with great vehemence, and thus becomes immedi- 
ately greatly expanded, so much cold is produced, that the moisture 
from this stream of air is precipitated in the form of snow, and ice is 
formed, adhering to the nosel of the cock. This remarkable circum- 
stance is described at large, with a plate of the machine, in Phil. 
Trans, vol. lii. for 1761, p. 547. 

The following experiment is related by Dr. Darwin, in the Phil. 
Trans, vol. lxxviii. Having charged an air-gun as forcibly as he well 
could, the air-cell and syringe became exceedingly hot, much more so 
than could be ascribed to the friction in working it ; it was then left 
about half an hour to cool down the temperature of the air, and a. 
thermometer having been previously fixed against a wall, the air was 
discharged in a continual stream on its bulb, and it sunk many degrees. 
From these three experiments of the steam in the exhausted receiver 
being deposited and re-absorbed, when a part of the air is exhausted 
•or rc-admitted, and the snow produced by the fountain of Hiero, 



BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

and the extraordinary heat given out in charging, and the cold pro- 
duced in discharging an air-gun, there is reason to conclude, thai 
when air is mechanically compressed, the elementary fluid heat is 
pressed out of it. and that when it is mechanically expanded, the same 
fluid heat is re-absorbed from the common mass. 

It is probable all other bodies as well as air attract heat from their 
neighbours when they are mechanically expanded, and give it oui 
when they are mechanically condensed. Thus when a vibration of 
the particles of hard bodies is excited by friction or by percussion, 
these particles mutually recede from and approach each other reci- 
procally ; at the times of their recession from each other, the body 
becomes enlarged in bulk, and is then in a condition to attract heat 
from those in its vicinity with great and sudden power ; at the times 
of their approach to each other this heat is again given out ; but the 
bodies in contact having in the meanwhile received the heat they had 
thus lost, from other bodies behind them, do not so suddenly or so 
forcibly re-absorb the heat again from the body in vibration ; hence it 
remains on its surface like the electric fluid on a rubbed glass globe, 
and for the same reason, because there is no good conductor to take 
it up again. Hence, at every vibration more and more heat is ac- 
quired, and stands loose upon the surface, as in filing metals, or rub- 
bing glass tubes ; and thus a smith, with a few strokes on a nail on his 
anvil, can make it hot enough to light a brimstone match ; and hence 
in striking flint and steel together heat enough is produced to vitrify 
the parts thus stricken off, the quantity of which heat is again pro- 
bably increased by the new chemical combination. 

II. The analogy between the phenomena of the electric fluid and of 
heat furnishes 'another argument in support of the existence of heat 
as a gravitating fluid. 1. They are both accumulated by friction on 
the excited body. 2. They are propagated easily or with difficulty 
along the same classes of bodies; with ease by metals, with less ease 
by water, and with difficulty by resins, bees-wax, silk, air, and glass. 
Thus glass canes, or canes of sealing-wax, may be melted by a blow- 
pipe, or a candle, within a quarter of an inch of the fingers which 
hold them, without any inconvenient heat ; while a pin, or other 
metallic substance, applied to the flame of a candle, so readily con- 
ducts the heat as immediately to burn the fingers. Hence clothes of 
silk keep the body warmer than clothes of linen of ecjual thickness, 
by confining the heat upon the body. And hence plains are so much 
warmer than the summits of mountains, by the greater density of the 
air confining the acquired heat upon them. 3. They both give out 
light in their passage through air, perhaps not in their passage through 
a vacuum. 4. They both of them fuse or vitrify metals. 5. Bodies, 
after being electrized, if they arc mechanically extended, will receiva 



Note S. MEMNON'S LYRE. 35J 

a greater quantity of electricity, as in Dr. Franklin's experiment of 
the chain in the tankard ; the same seems true in respect to heat, as 
explained above. 6. Both heat and electricity contribute to suspend 
steam in the atmosphere, by producing or increasing the repulsion of 
its particles. 7. They both gravitate, when they have been accumu- 
lated, till they find their equilibrium. 

If we add to the above the many chemical experiments which re- 
ceive an easy and elegant explanation from the supposed matter of 
heat, as employed in the works of Bergman and Lavoisier, I think we 
may reasonably allow of its existence as an element, occasionally 
combined wich other bodies, and occasionally existing as a fluid, like 
the electric fluid gravitating amongst them ; and that hence it may be 
propagated from the central fires of the earth to the whole mass, and 
contribute to preserve the mean heat of the earth, which, in this 
country, is about 48 degrees, but variable from the greater or less 
effect of the sun's heat in different climates, so well explained in Mr. 
Kirwan's Treatise on the temperature of different latitudes. 1787. 
Elmsly. London. 



NOTE VIII.—MEMNON'S LYRE, 

So to the sacred Sun in Memnon's fane, 
Spontaneous concords quired the matin strain. 

Canto I. 1. 183. 

THE gigantic statue of Memnon, in his temple at Thebes, had a 
lyre in his hands, which, many credible writers assure us, sounded 
when the rising sun shone upon it. Some philosophers have supposed 
'.hat the sun's light possesses a mechanical impulse, and that the 
sounds above-mentioned might be thence produced. Mr. Michel 
constructed a very tender horizontal balance, as related by Dr. 
Priestley in his history of light and colours, for this purpose; but 
some experiments, with this balance, which I saw made by the late 
Dr. Powel, who threw the focus of a large reflector on one extremity 
of it, were not conclusive either way, as the copper leaf of the 
balance approached in one experiment and receded in another. 

There are, however, methods by which either a rotative or alter- 
nating motion may be produced by very moderate degrees of heat» 
If a straight glass tube, such as are used for barometers, be sus- 
pended horizontally before a fire, like a roasting spit, it will revolve 
by intervals ; for as glass is a bad conductor of heat, the side next 
the fire becomes heated sooner than the opposite side, and the tube 



IS! BOTANIC GARDHf. Part I. 

becomes bent int'"> a bow, with the external part of the curve towards 
the fire ; this curve then falls down, and produces a fourth part of ?. 
revolution of the glass tube, which thus revolves with intermediate, 
pauses. 

Another alternating motion I have seen produced by suspending 
a glass tube about eight inches long, with buibfi at each end, on a 
centre like a scale- >eam. This curious machine is filled about one 
third part with purest spirit of wine, the other two thirds being a 
vacuum, and is called a pulse-glass: if it be placed in a box before 
the fire, so that either bulb, as it rises, may become shaded from the 
fire, and exposed to it when it descends, an alternate libration of it 
is produced. For spirit of wine in vacuo emits steam by a very small 
degree of heat, and this steam forces the spirit beneath it up into the 
upper bulb, which therefore descends. It is probable such a machine, 
on a larger scale, might be of use to open the doors or windows of 
hot-houses or melon-frames, when the air within them should become 
too much heated, or might be employed in more important mechani- 
cal purposes. 

On travelling through a hot summer's day in a chaise, with a boj; 
covered with leather on the fore-axle-tree, I observed, as the sun 
shone upon the black leather, the box began to open its lid. which, at 
noon, rose above a foot, and could not, without great force, be pressed 
down ; and which gradually closed again as the sun declined in the 
evening. This, I suppose, might with still greater facility be applied 
*o the purpose of opening melon-frames, or the sashes of hot-houses. 

The statue of Memnon was overthrown and sawed in two by Cam- 
byses, to discover its internal structure, and is said still to exist. See 
Savary's Letters on Egypt. The truncated statue is said, for many 
centuries, to have saluted the rising sun with cheerful tones, and the 
setting sun with melancholy ones. 



NOTE IX LUMINOUS INSECTS. 

Star of the earthy and diamond of the night* 

Canto I. 1. 196a 

THERE are eighteen species of Lampyris, or glow-worm, accord- 
ing to Linnaeus, some of which are found in almost every part of the 
world. In many of the species the females have no wings, and are 
supposed to be discovered by the winged males by their shining in the 
night. They become much more lucid when they put themselves in 
■motion, which would seem to indicate that their light is owing 



Note 9. LUMINOUS INSECTS. 15? 

respiration ; in which process it is probable phosphoric acid is pro- 
duced by the combination of vital air with some part of the blood, and 
that light is given out through their transparent bodies, by this sIcst 
internal combustion. 

There is a fire-fly, of the beetle kind, described in the Diet. Rai- 
sonne, under the name of Acudia, which is said to be two inches long, 
and inhabits the West-Indies and South-America ; the natives use 
them instead of candles, putting from one to three of them under a 
glass. Madam Merian says, that at Surinam the light of this fly is 
so great, that she saw sufficiently well by one of them to paint and 
finish one of the figures of them in her work on insects. The largest 
and oldest of them are said to become four inches long, and to shine 
like a shooting star as they fly, and are thence called Lantern-bearers. 
The use of this light to the insect itself seems to be, that it may not 
fly against objects in the night ; by which contrivance these insects are 
enabled to procure their sustenance either by night or day, as their 
wants mav require, or their numerous enemies permit them ; whereas 
some of our beetles have eyes adapted only to the night, and if they 
happen to come abroad too soon in the evening, are so dazzled that 
thev fly against every thing in their way. See note on Phosphorus, 
No. X. 

In some seas, as particularly about the coast of Malabar, as a ship 
floats along, it seems, during the night, to be surrounded with fire, 
and to leave a long tract of light behind it. Whenever the sea is 
gently agitated, it seems converted into little stars ; every drop, as it 
breaks, emits light, like bodies electrified in the dark. Mr. Bomare 
says, that when he was at the port of Cettes, in Languedoc, and 
bathing with a companion in the sea, after a very hot .day, they both 
appeared covered with fire after every immersion, and that laying 
his wet hand on the arm of his companion, who had not then dipped 
himself, the exact mark of his hand and fingers was seen in charac- 
ters of fire. As numerous microscopic insects are found in this shining 
water, its light has been generally ascribed to them, though it seems 
probable that fish-slime, in hot countries, may become in such a state 
of incipient putrefaction, as to give light, especially when by agitation 
it is more exposed to the air ; otherwise it is not easy to explain why- 
agitation should be necessary to produce this marine light. See note 
on Phosphorus, No. X. 



[ U8 J 

NOTE X— PHOSPHORUS. 

with ahining litters Kunkel't name 
J.: Vie pale Phosphor's self-consuming flame. 

Canto I. 1.233. 

K.UNKEL, a native of Hamburgh, was the first who discovered to 
the world the process for producing phosphorus, though Brandt and 
Boyle were likewise said to have previously had the art of making it. 
It was obtained from sal microensmicum, by evaporation, in the form 
of an acid, but has since been found in other animal substances, as in 
the ashes of bones, and even in some vegetables, as in wheat flour. 
Keir's Chemical Diet. This phosphoric acid is, like all other acids, 
united with vital air, and requires to be treated with charcoal 01 
phlogiston to deprive it of this air ; it then becomes a kind of animal 
sulphur, but of so inflammable a nature, that on the access of air it 
takes fire spontaneously, and, as it burns, becomes again united with 
vital air, and re-assumes its form of phosphoric acid. 

As animal respiration seems to be a kind of slow combustion, in 
which it is probable that phosphoric acid is produced by the union of 
phosphorus with the vital air, so it is also probable that phosphoric 
acid is produced in the excretory or respiratory vessels of luminous 
insects, as the glow-worm and fire-fly, and some marine insects. 
From the same principle I suppose the light from putrid flesh, as from 
the heads of haddocks, and from putrid veal, and from rotten wood, 
in a certain state of their putrefaction, is produced, and phosphorus, 
thus slowly combined with air, is changed into phosphoric acid. The 
light from the Bolognian stone, and from calcined shells, and from 
uhite paper, and linen, after having been exposed for a time to the 
sun's light, seems to produce either the phosphoric or some other kind 
of acid, from the sulphurous or phlogistic matter which they contain. 
See note on Beccari's shells, 1. 182. 

There is another process seems similar to this slow combustion, 
and that is bleaching. By the warmth and light of the sun, the water 
sprinkled upon linen or cotton cloth seems to be decomposed (if we 
credit the theory of M. Lavoisier), and a part of the vital air thus 
set at liberty and uncombined, and not being in its clastic form, more 
easily dissolves the colouring or phlogistic matter of the cloth, and 
produces a new acid, which is itself colourless, or is washed out of 
the cloth by water. The new process of bleaching confirms a part 
of this theory, for by uniting much vital air to marine acid, by distil- 
ling it from manganese, on dipping the cloth to he bleached in water 
raerated. marine acid, the colouring matter 



Note 11. STEAM-ENGINE. 159- 

disappears immediately, sooner indeed in cotton than in linen. See 
note XXXIV. 

There is another process which, I suspect, bears analogy to these 
above-mentioned, and that is the rancidity of animal fat, as of bacon : 
if bacon be hung up in a warm kitchen, with much salt adhering on 
the outside of it, the fat part of it soon becomes yellow and rancid ; 
if it be washed with much cold water after it has imbibed the salt, 
and just before it is hung up, I am well informed that it will not be- 
come rancid, or in very slight degrees. In the former case I imagine 
the salt on the surface of the bacon attracts water during the cold of 
the night, which is evaporated during the day, and that in this eva- 
poration a part of the water becomes decomposed, as in bleaching ; and 
ks vital air uniting with greater facility in its unelastic state with the 
animal fat, produces an acid, perhaps of the phosphoric kind, which 
being of a fixed nature, lies upon the bacon, giving it the yellow 
colour and rancid taste. It is remarkable that the superaerated ma- 
rine acid does not bleach living animal substances, at least it did not 
whiten a part of my hand which I for some minutes exposed to it. 



NOTE XT— STEAM-ENGINE. 

Quick moves the balanced beam of giant-birth, 

Wields his large limbs, and, nodding, shakes the earth. 

Canto I. 1. 26L 

THE expansive force of steam was known in some degree to the 
ancients. Hero, of Alexandria, describes an application of it to pro- 
duce a rotative motion by the re-action of steam issuing from a sphere 
mounted upon an axis, thriugh two small tubes bent into tangents, 
and issuing from the opposite sides of the equatorial diameter of the 
sphere ; the sphere was supplied with steam by a pipe communicating 
with a pan of boiling water, and entering the sphere at one of its 
poles. 

A French writer, about the year 1630, describes a method of rais- 
ing water to the upper part of a house, by filling a chamber with 
steam, and suffering it to condense of itself; but it seems to have been 
mere theory, as his method was scarcely practicable as he describes 
it. In 16J5, the Marquis of Worcester mentions a method of raising 
water by fire, in his Century of Inventions ; but he seems only to have 
d 'iimself of the expansive force, and not to have known the ad- 
vantages arising from condensing the steam by an injection of cold 

Part I. Z 



160 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

water. This latter and most important improvement seems to ha\r 
been made by Capt. Savary, some time prior to 1698, for in that \eai 
ins patent for the use of that invention was confirmed by act of par- 
liament. This gentleman appears to have been the first who reduced 
the machine to practice, and exhibited it in an useful firm. This 
method consisted only in expelling the air from a vessel by steam, and 
condensing the steam by an injection of cold water, which making a 
vacuum, the pressure of the atmosphere forced the water to ascend 
into the steam-vessel through a pipe of 24 to 26 feet high, and by the 
admission of dense steam from the boiler, forcing the water in the 
steam-vessel to ascend to the height desired. This construction was 
defective, because it required very strong vessels to resist the force 
of the steam, and because an enormous quantity of steam was con- 
densed by coming in contact with the cold water in the steam-vessel. 

About, or soon after that time, M. Papin attempted a steam-engine 
on similar principles, but rather more defective in its construction. 

The next improvement was made very soon afterwards by Messrs. 
Newcomen and Cawley, of Dartmouth ; it consisted in employing for 
the steam-vessel a hollow cylinder, shut at bottom and open at top, 
furnished with a piston sliding easily up and down in it, and made 
tight by oakum or hemp, and covered with water. This piston is 
suspended by chains from one end of a beam, moveable upon an axis 
in the middle of its length ; to the other end of this beam are sus- 
pended the pump-rods. 

The danger of bursting the vessels was avoided in this machine ; 
as however high the water was to be raised, it was not necessary to 
increase the density of the steam, but only to enlarge the diameter o£ 
the cylinder. 

Another advantage was, that the cylinder, not being made so cold 
as in Savary's method, much less steam was lost in filling it after each, 
condensation. 

The machine, however, still remained imperfect, for the cold wa- 
ter thrown into the cylinder acquired heat from the steam it con- 
densed, and being in a vessel exhausted of air, it produced steam itself. 
which, in part, resisted the action of the atmosphere on the piston; 
were this remedied by throwing in more cold water, the destruction 
of steam in the next filling of the cylinder would be proportionally 
increased. It has, therefore, in practice, been found advisable not 
to load these engines with columns of water weighing more than seven 
pounds for each square inch of the area of the piston. The bulk of 
Water, when converted into steam, remained unknown, until Mr. J. 
Watt, then of Glasgow, in 176-1, determined it to be about 1800 times 
more- rare than water. It soon occurred to Mr. Watt, that a perfect 
engine would Ik: that in which no steam should be condensed in filling 



Note 11. STEAM-ENGINE. 161 

the cylinder, and in which the steam should be so perfectly cooled as 
to produce nearly a perfect vacuum. 

Mr. Watt having ascertained the degree of heat in which water 
boiled in vacuo, and under progressive degrees of pressure, and in- 
structed by Dr. Black's discovery of latent heat, having calculated the 
quantity of cold water necessary to condense certain quantities of steam 
so far as to produce the exhaustion required, he made a communication, 
from the cylinder to a cold vessel previously exhausted of air and wa- 
ter, into which the steam rushed, by its elasticity, and became imme- 
rliately condensed. He then adapted a cover to the cylinder, and 
admitted steam above the piston to press it down instead of air, and 
instead of applying water, he used oil or grease to fill the pores of the 
oakum, and to lubricate the cylinder. 

He next applied a pump to extact the injection water, the con- 
densed steam, and the air, from the condensing vessel, every stroke 
of the engine. 

To prevent the cooling of the cylinder by the contact of the exter- 
nal air, he surrounded it with a case containing steam, which he 
again protected by a covering of matters which conduct heat slowly. 

This construction presented an easy means of regulating the power 
of the engine, for the steam being the acting power, as the pipe which 
admits it from the boiler is more or less opened, a greater or smaller 
quantity can enter during the time of a stroke, and, consequently, the 
engine can act with exactly the necessary degree of energy. 

Mr. Watt gained a patent for his engine in 1768 ; but the further 
prosecution of his designs was delayed by other avocations till 1775, 
when, in conjunction with Mr. Boulton, of Soho, near Birmingham, 
numerous experiments were made, on a large scale, by their united 
ingenuity, and great improvements added to the machinery, and an 
act of parliament obtained for the prolongation of their patent for 
twenty-five years : they have, since that time, drained many of the 
deep mines in Cornwall, which, but for the happy union of such genius, 
must immediately have ceased to work. One of these engines works 
a pump of eighteen inches diameter, and upwards of 100 fathom, or 
600 feet high, at the rate of ten to twelve strokes, of seven feet long 
each, in a minute, and that with one fifth part of the coals Avhich a 
common engine would have taken to do the same work. The power 
of this engine may be easier comprehended by saying, that it raised a 
weight equal to 81,000 pounds 80 feet high in a minute, which is 
equal to the combined action of 200 good horses. In Newcomen's en» 
gine this would have required a cylinder of the enormous diameter of 
120 inchesi or ten feet ; but as in this engine of Mr. Watt and Mr 
Boulton the steam acts, and a vacuum is made, alternately above and 
below the piston, the power exerted is double to what the same cylinder 



W BOTANIC GARDEN. p ART I. 

would otherwise produce, and is further augmented by an inequality 
in the length of the two ends of die lever. 

These gentlemen have aLso, by other contrivance-, app'ied tlieir 
engines to the tuning of mills for almost ev ry purple, of which that 
great pile of machinery, the A bion Mill, is a well known instance. 
Forges, slitting mills, and other great works, are erected where na- 
ture has furnished no running water, and future times may boast 
thit this grand and useful engine was invented and perfected in our 
own country. 

Since the above article went to the press, the Albion Mill is no more ; 
it is supposed to have been set on fire by interested or ma.icious incen- 
diaries, and is burnt to the ground. Whence London has lost the 
credit and the advantage of possessing the most powerful machine ia 
the world. 



NOTE XII— FROST. 

In phalanx Jirrn, the Fiend of Frost assail. 

Canto I. 1.439. 

THE cause of the expansion of water during its conversion into ice 
is not yet well ascertained ; it was supposed to have been owing to the 
air being set at liberty in the act of congelation, which was before, 
dissolved in the water, and the many air bubbles in ice were thought 
to countenance this opinion. But the great force with which ice ex- 
pands during its congelation, so as to burst iron bombs and coehorns. 
according to the experiments of Major Williams, at Quebec, invali- 
dates this idea of the cause of it, and may some time be brought into 
use as a means of breaking rocks in mining, or projecting cannon* 
balls, or for other mechanical purpose . if the means of producing 
congelation shou d ever be discovered to be as easy as the means of 
producing combustion. 

Mr. de Mairan attributes the increase of bulk of frozen water te 
the different arrangement of the particles of it in crystallization, as 
they are constantly joined at an angle of 60 degrees, and must, b) 
this disposition, he thinks, occupy a greater volume than if they were 
parallel. He found the augmentation of the water, during freezing, 
to amount to one-fourteenth, one-eighteenth, one-nineteenth, and 
When the water was previously purged of air, to only one-twenty- 
Becond part. He adds, that a piece of ice, which was at first only one- 
fourteenth par' specifically lighter than water, on being exposed sow 
days to the frost, became one-twelfth lighter than water. H 



Note 12. FROST. 163 

thinks ice, by being exposed to greater cold, still increases in volume, 
and to this attributes the bursting of ice in ponds, and on the glaciers. 
See Lewis's Commerce of Arts, p. 257, and the note on Muschus, in 
the second part of this work. 

This expansion of ice well accounts for the greater mischief done 
by vernal frosts attended with moisture (as by hoar frosts), than by 
the dry frosts, called black frosts. Mr. Lawrence, in a letter to Mr. 
Bradley, complains that the dale-mist, attended with a frost, on May- 
day, had destroved all his tender fruits ; though there was a sharper 
frost the night before, without a mist, that did him no injury ; and 
adds, that a garden not a stone's throw from his own, on a higher 
situation, being above the dale-mist, had received no damage. Brad- 
ley, vol. ii. p. 232. 

Mr. Hunter, by very curious experiments, discovered that the living 
principle in fish, in vegetables, and even in eggs and seeds, possesses 
a power of resisting congelation. Phil. Trans. There can be no 
doubt but that the exertions of animals to avoid the pain of cold, re- 
produce in them a greater quantity of heat, at least for a time ; but 
that vegetables, eggs, or seeds, should possess such a quality, is truly 
•wonderful. Others have imagined that animals possess a power of 
preventing themselves from becoming much warmer than 98 degrees- 
of heat, when immersed in an atmosphere above that degree of heat. 
It is true that the increased exhalation from their bodies will, in some 
measure, cool them, as much heat is carried off by the evaporation of 
fluids ; but this is a chemical, not an animal process. The experi- 
ments made by those who continued many minutes in the air of a room 
heated so much above any natural atmospheric heat, do not seem con- 
elusive, as they remained in it a less time than would have been neces- 
sary to have heated a mass of beef of the same magnitude ; and the 
circulation of the blood in living animals, by perpetually bringing new- 
supplies of fluid to the skin, would prevent the external surface from 
becoming hot much sooner than the whole mass. And, thirdly, there 
appears no power of animal bodies to produce cold in diseases, as in 
scarlet fever, in which the increased action of the vessels of the skin 
produces heat, and contributes to exhaust the animal power already 
too much weakened. 

It has been thought by many that frosts meliorate the ground, and 
that they are in general salubrious to mankind. In respect to the for- 
mer, it is now well known that ice or snow contain no nitrous par- 
ticles, and though frost, by enlarging the bulk of moist clay, leaves it 
softer for a time after the thaw ; yet as soon as the water exhales, the 
clay becomes as hard as before, being pressed together by the incum- 
bent atmosphere, and by its self-attraction, called setting by the pot- 
ters. Add tothisj that on the coasts of Africa, where frost is an- 



164 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I, 

known, the fertility of the soil is almost beyond our conceptions of 
it. In respect to the general salubrity of frosty seasons, the bills of 
mortality are an evidence in the negative, as in long frosts many 
weakly and old people perish from debility occasioned by the cold, and 
many classes of birds, and other wild animals, are benumbed by the 
cold, or destroyed by the consequent scarcity of food, and many ten- 
der vegetables perish from the degree of cold. 

I do not think it should be objected to this doctrine, that there arc 
moist days, attended with a brisk cold wind, when no visible ice ap- 
pears, and which are yet more disagreeable and destructive than frosty 
weather. For on these days the cold moisture which is deposited on 
the skin is there evaporated, and thus produces a degree of cold per- 
haps greater than the milder frosts. Whence, even in such days, 
both the disagreeable sensations and insalubrious effects belong to the 
cause above-mentioned, viz. the intensity of the cold. Add to this, 
that in these cold moist days, as we pass along, or as the wind blows 
upon us, a new sheet of cold water is, as it were, perpetually applied 
to us, and hangs upon our bodies. Now, as water is 800 times denser 
than air, and is a much better conductor of heat, we are starved with 
cold, like those who go into a cold bath, both by the great number of 
particles in contact with the skin, and their greater facility of receiv- 
ing our heat. 

It may nevertheless be true, that snows of long duration, in our 
■winters, may be less injurious to vegetation than great rains and shorter 
frosts, for two reasons. 1. Because great rains carry down many 
thousand pounds worth of the best part of the manure off the lands 
into the sea, whereas snow dissolves more gradually, and thence 
carries away less from the land. Any one may distinguish a snow- 
flood from a rain-flood by the transparency of the water. Hence hills 
or fields, with considerable inclination of surface, should be ploughed 
horizontally, that the furrows may stay the water from showers till it 
deposits its mud. 2. Snow protects vegetables from the severity of 
the frost, since it is always in a state of thaw where it is in contact 
with the earth ; as the earth's heat is about 48 degrees, and the heat 
of thawing snow is 32 degrees, the vegetables between them are kept 
In a degree of heat about 40, by which many of them are preserved, 
-?ce note on Muschus, Part II. of this work. 



C 165 ) 

NOTE XIII ELECTRICITY. 

Cold from each point cerulean lustres gleam. 

Canto I. 1. 339. 

ELECTRIC POINTS. 

THERE was an idle dispute, whether knobs or points were prefer- 
able on the top of conductors, for the defence of houses. The design 
of these conductors is to permit the electric matter accumulated in the 
clouds to pass through them into the earth in a smaller continued stream 
as the cloud approaches, before it comes to what is termed striking 
distance. Now, as it is well known that accumulated electricity will 
pass to points at a much greater distance than it will to knobs, there 
can be no doubt of their preference ; and it would seem, that the finer 
the points, and the less liable to become rusty, the better, as it would 
take off the lightning while it was still at a greater distance, and by 
that means preserve a greater extent of building. The very extremity 
of the point should be of pure silver or gold, and might be branched 
into a kind of brush, since one small point cannot be supposed to re- 
ceive so great a quantity as a thicker bar might conduct into the earth* 

If an insulated metallic ball is armed with a point, like a needle, 
projecting from one part of it, the electric fluid will be seen in the 
dark to pass off from this point, so long as the ball is kept supplied 
with electricity. The reason of this is not difficult to comprehend : 
Every part of the electric atmosphere which surrounds the insulated 
ball, is attracted to that ball by a large surface of it ; whereas the elec- 
tric atmosphere which is near the extremity of the needle, is attracted 
to it only by a single point ; in consequence, the particles of elec- 
tric matter, near the surface of the ball, approach towards it, and 
push off, by their greater gravitation, the particles of electric matter 
over the point of the needle, in a continued stream. 

Something like this happens in respect to the diffusion of oil on wa- 
ter from a pointed cork, an experiment which was many years ago 
shown me by Dr. Franklin. He cut a piece of cork about the size of 
a letter-wafer, and left on one edge of it a point about a sixth of an 
inch in length, projecting as a tangent to the circumference. This 
was dipped in oil, and thrown on a pond of water, and continued to 
revolve, as the oil left the point, for a great many minutes. The oil 
descends from the floating cork upon the water, being diffused upon 
it without friction, and perhaps without contact ; but its going off at 
the point so forcibly as to make that cork revolve in a contrary direc- 
tion, seems analogous to the departure of the electric fluid from poirrt^ 



166 BOTANIC GARDEN*. Part I. 

Can any thing similar to either of these happen in respect to the 
earth's atmosphere, and give occasion to the breeaes on the 
mountains, which may be considered as points on the earth's circum- 
ference I 

FAIRY-RINGS. 

There i- a phenomenon, supposed to be electric, which is yet unac- 
counted for ; I mean the Fairy-rings, as they are called, so often -een 
on the grass. The numerous flashes of lightning which occur every 
summer, are, I believe, generally discharged on the earth, and but 
seldom (if ever) from one cloud to another. Moist trees are the most 
frequent conductors of these flashes of lightning, and I am informed 
by purchasers of wood, that innumerable trees are thus cracked and 
injured. At other times larger parts or prominences of clouds, gra- 
dually sinking as they move along, are discharged on the moister 
parts of grassy plains. Now, this knob or corner of a cloud, in being 
attracted by the earth, will become nearlv cylindrical, as loose wool 
would do when drawn out into a thread, and will strike the earth with 
a stream of electricity, perhaps two or ten yards in diameter. Now, 
as a stream of electricity displaces the air it passes through, it is plain 
no part of the grass can be burnt by it, but just the external ring of 
this cylinder, where the grass can have access to the air, since with- 
out air nothing can be calcined. This earth, after having been so 
calcined, becomes a richer soil, and either funguses or a bluer grass 
for many years mark the place. That lightning displaces the air in 
its passage is evinced by the loud crack that succeeds it, which is 
owing to the sides of the aerial vacuum clapping together when the 
lightning is withdrawn. That nothing will calcine without air is now- 
well understood from the acids produced in the burning of phlo- 
gistic substances, and may be agreeably seen by suspending a paper 
on an iron prong, and putting it into the centre of the blaze of an 
iron-furnace ; it may be held there some seconds, and may be again 
withdrawn without its being burnt, if it be passed quickly into the 
flame and out again, through the external part of it, which i 
tact with the air. I know some circles of many yards diameter of 
this kind, near Foremark, in Derbyshire, which annually produce 
large white funguses, and stronger grass, and have done so, 1 am in- 
formed, above thirty years. This increased fertility of the ground by 
calcination or charring, and its continuing to operate so m 
is well worth the attention of the fanner, and shows the use of paring 
and burning new turf in agriculture, which produces its effect not so 
much by the ashes of the vegetabl charring the soil which 

acLieres to th ; 



Jg'ortU. BUDS AND BULBS. 16r 

These situations, whether from eminence or from moisture, which 
were proper once to attract and discharge a thunder-cloud, are more 
liable again to experience the same. Hence many fairy-rings are often 
seen near each other, either without intersecting each other, as I saw 
this summer in a garden in Nottinghamshire, or intersecting each 
other, as described on Arthur's seat, near Edinburgh, in the Edinb 
Trans, vol. ii. p. 3. 



NOTE XIV.— BUDS AND BULBS, 

Where dwell my -vegetative realms benumb' 'a, 
In buds im/irisan'd, or in bulbs intomb'd. 

Canto I. 1. 459. 

A Tree is, properly speaking, a family or swarm of buds, eacK 
bud being an individual plant ; for if one of these buds be torn or cut 
out, and planted in the earth, with a glass cup inverted over it, to 
prevent its exhalation from being at first greater than its power of 
absorption, it will produce a tree similar to its parent : each bud has 
a leaf, which is its lungs, appropriated to it, and the bark of the tree 
is a congeries of the roots of these individual buds ; whence old hollow 
trees are often seen to have some branches flourish with vigour after 
the internal wood is almost entirely decayed and vanished. According 
to this idea, Linnxus has observed, that trees and shrubs are roots 
above ground ; for if a tree be inverted, leaves will grow from the 
root-part, and roots from the trunk-part. Phil. Bot. p. 39. Hence 
it appears that vegetables have two methods of propagating them- 
selves, the oviparous as by seeds, and the viviparous as by their buds 
and bulbs; and that the individual plants, whether from seeds, or 
buds, or bulbs, are all annual productions, like many kinds of insects, 
as the silk-worm, the parent perishing in the autumn after having 
produced an embryon, which lies in a torpid state during the winter, 
and is matured in the succeeding summer. Hence Linnxus names 
buds and bulbs the winter cradles of the plant, or hybernacula, and 
might have given the same term to seeds. In warm climates fevy 
plants produce buds, as the vegetable life can be completed in one 
summer, and hence the hybernacle is not wanted ; in cold climates 
also some plants do not produce buds, as philadelphus, frangula, vi- 
burnum, ivy, heath, wood-nightshade, rue, geranium. 
. The bulbs of plants are another kind of winter cradle, or hyberna- 
cle, adhering to the descending trunk, and are found in the perennial 
herbaceous plants, which are too tender to bear the cold of the winter. 
Part I. 2 A 



168 BOTANIC GARDE*. Part I. 

The production of these subterraneous winter lodges is not yet, per- 
haps, clearly understood; they have been distributed by Linnxus, 
according to their forms, into scaly, solid, coated, and jointed bulbs, 
which, however, docs not elucidate their manner of production. As 
the buds of trees may be truly esteemed individual annual plants, 
their roots constituting the bark of the trees, it follows, that these 
roots (viz. of each individual bud) spread themselves over the last 
year's bark, making a new bark over the old one, and thence descend- 
ing, cover with a new bark the old roots also in the same manner. 
A similar circumstance I suppose to happen in some herbaceous 
plants, that is, a new bark is annually produced over the old root ; 
and thus, for some years at least, the old root or caudex increases in 
size, and puts up new stems. As these roots increase in size, the 
central part, I suppose, changes like the internal wood of a tree, and 
does not possess any vegetable life, and therefore gives out no fibres 
or rootlets, and hence appears bitten off, as in valerian, plantain, 
and devil's bit. And this decay of the central part of the root, I sup- 
pose, has given occasion to the belief of the root-fibres drawing down 
the bulb, so much insisted on by Mr. Milne, in his Botanical Diction- 
ary, art. Bulb. 

From the observations and drawings of various kinds, of bulbous 
roots, at different times of their growth, sent me by a young lady 
of nice observation, it appears probable that all bulbous roots, pro- 
perly so called, perish annually in this climate. Bradley, Miller, and 
the author of Spectacle de la Nature, observe that the tulip annually 
renews its bulb, for the stalk of the old flower is found under the old 
dry coat, but on the outside of the new bulb. This large new bulb is 
the flowering bulb; but besides this there are other small new bulbs 
produced between the coats of this large one, but from the same cau- 
dex (or circle from which the root-fibres spring) ; these small bulbs 
are leaf-bearing bulbs, and renew themselves annually, with increas- 
ing size, till they bear flowers. 

Miss favoured me with the following curious experiment ; 

She took a small tulip-root out of the earth when the green leaves 
■were sufficiently high to show the flower, and placed it in a glass 
of water; the leaves and flower soon withered, and the bulb became 
■wrinkled and soft, but put out one small side bulb, and three bulbs 
beneath, descending an inch into the water by processes from the 
caudex; the old bulb in some weeks entirely decayed. On dissecting 
i ter, the middle descending bulb was found, by its process, 
to adhere to the caudex and to the old flower-stem ; and the side ones 
were separated from the flower-stem bj a few shrivelled coats, but ad- 
hered to tin caudex. Whence she concludes that these last were en- 
acts, or leaf-bulbs, which should have been seen between the coal 



Note 15. SOLAR VOLCANOS. 16S 

new flower-bulb, if it had been left to grow in the earth, and that the mid- 
dle one would have been the new flower-bulb. In some years (perhaps 
in wet seasons) the florists are said to lose many of their tulip-roots by a 
similar process, the new leaf-bulbs being produced beneath the old 
ones by an elongation of the caudex, without any new flower-bulbs. 

By repeated dissections, she observes, that the leaf-bulbs, or off- 
sets of tulip, crocus, gladiolus, fritillary, are renewed in the same 
manner as the flowering-bulbs, contrary to the opinion of man)' wri- 
ters ; this new leaf-bulb is formed on the inside of the coats from 
whence the leaves grow, and is more or less advanced in size as the 
outer coats and leaves are more or less shrivelled. In examining tulip, 
iris, hyacinth, hare-bell, the new bulb was invariably found between 
the flower-stem and the base of the innermost leaf of those roots which 
had flowered, and enclosed by the base of the innermost leaf in those 
roots which had not flowered, in both cases adhering to the caudex or 
fleshy circle from which the root-fibres spring. 

Hence it is probable that the bulbs of hyacinths are renewed annu- 
ally, but that this is performed from the caudex within the old bulb, 
the outer coat of which does not so shrivel as in crocus and fritillaiy, 
and hence this change is not so appai'ent. But, I believe, as soon as 
the flower is advanced, the new bulbs may be seen on dissection ; nor 
does the annual increase of the size of the root of cyclamen, and of 
aletris capensis, militate against this annual renewal of them, since 
the leaf-bulbs, or off-sets, as described above, are increased in size 
as they are annually renewed. See note on Orchis, and on Anthox- 
anthum, in Part II. of this work. 



NOTE XV SOLAR VOLCANOS, 

From the deep craters of his realms of fire, 
The whirling Sun this ponderous planet hurVd. 

Canto II. 1. 14. 

Dr. Alexander Wilson, Professor of Astronomy at Glasgow, 
published a paper in the Philosophical Transactions for 1774, demon- 
strating that the spots in the sun's disk are real cavities, excavations 
through the luminous material, which covers the other parts of the 
sun's surface. One of these cavities he found to be about 4000 miles 
deep, and many times as wide. Some objections were made to this 
doctrine by M. De la Lande, in the Memoirs of the French Academy 
for the year 1776, which, however, have been ably answered by pro- 
fessor Wilson in reply, in the Philos. Trans, for 1783. Kiel cbservesj 



17% I \mt GARDEtt Part I. 

in his Astronomical Lectures, p. 44, "We frequently so? 
tin' sim \shii h ; n< t on!}- than Europe or Africa, 

but which even equal, if they do not exceed, the surface of the whole 
terraqueous globe." Now, that these cavities are made in the sun's 
body by a process of nature similar to our earthquakes, d< W not stem 
improbable on several, accounts. 1. Because, From this di 
Dr. Wilson, it appears that the internal parts of the sun are not in 
a state of inflammation or of ejecting light, like the external part or 
luminous ocean which covers it; and hence that a greater degree of 
heat or inflammation, and consequent expansion or expl wion, may 
occasionally be produced in its internal or dark nucleus. 2. Because 
the solar spots or cavities are frequently increased or diminished in 
size. 3. New ones are often produced. 4. And old ones vanish. 5. 
Because there are brighter or more luminous parts of the sun's disk, 
called faculx by Scheiner and Hevelius, which would seem to be vol- 
canos in the sun, or, as Dr. Wilson calls them, " eructations of mat- 
ter more luminous than that which covers the sun's surface." 6. To 
which may be added that all the planets added together, with their 
satellites, do not amount to more than one six hundred and fiftieth 
part of the mass of the sun, according to Sir Isaac Newton. 

Now, if it could be supposed that the planets were originally thrown 
out of the sun by larger sun-quakes than those frequent ones which 
occasion these spots or excavations above-mentioned, what would 
happen ? 1. According to the observations and opinion of Mr. Her- 
schel, the sun itself, and all its planets, are moving forwards round 
some other centre with an unknown velocity, which may be of opake 
matter, corresponding with the very ancient and general idea of a 
chaos. Whence, if a ponderous planet, as Saturn, could be supposed 
to be projected from the sun by an explosion, the motion of the 
sun itself might be at the same time disturbed in such a manner as to 
prevent the planet from falling again into it. 2. As the sun n viucs 
round its own axis, its form must be that of an oblate spheroid, like 
the earth, and therefore a body projected from its surface perpendicu- 
larly upwards from that surface, would not rise perpendicularly from 
the sun's centre, unless it happened to be projected exactly from 
either of its poles or from its equator. Whence it may not be neces- 
Barj that a planet, if thus projected from the su i. should 

again Fall into the sun. 3. They would part from the sun's surface 
with the velocity with which that surface was moving, and with the 
velocity acquired by the explosion, and would therefor* in \e round, 
tin- sun in the same direction in which the sun rotates on its axis, and 
perform eliptic orbits. 4. All the planets would move the same way 
round the sun, from this first motion acquired at leaving its surface; 
but their orbits would br. inclined to cacji other according to the dis- 



:note 15. SOLAR VOLCANOS. Ifl 

tance of the part, where they were thrown out, from the sun's equa- 
tor. Hence those which were ejected near the sun's equator would 
have orbits but little inclined to each other, as the primary planets; 
the plain of all whose orbits are inclined but seven degrees and a half 
from each other. Others, which were ejected near the sun's poles, 
would have much more eccentric orbits, as they would partake so 
much less of the sun's rotatory motion at the time they parted from 
his surf ire, and would, therefore, be carried further from the sun by 
the velocity they had gained by the explosion which ejected them, 
and become comets. 5. They would all obey the same laws of motion 
in their revolutions round the sun. This has been determined by astro- 
nomers, who have demonstrated that they move through equal areas 
in equal times. 6. As their annual periods would depend on the 
height they rose by the explosion, these would differ in them all. 7. 
As their diurnal revolutions would depend on one side of the exploded 
matter adhering more than the other at the time it was torn off by 
the explosion, these would also differ in the different planets, and not 
bear any proportion to their annual periods. Now, as all these cir- 
cumstances coincide with the known laws of the planetary system, 
they serve to strengthen this conjecture. 

This coincidence of such a variety of circumstances induced M. de 
Buffon to suppose that the planets were ail struck off from the sun's 
surface by the impact of a large comet, such as approached so near 
the sun's disk, and with such amazing velocity, in the year 1680, and 
is expected to return in 2255. But Mr. Buffon did not recollect that 
these comets themselves are only planets with more eccentric orbits, 
and that, therefore, it must be asked, what had previously struck off 
these comets from the sun's body ? 2. That if all these planets were 
struck off from the sun at the same time, they must have been so near 
as to have attracted each other, and have formed one mass. 3. That 
we shall want new causes for separating the secondary planets from 
the primary ones, and must therefore look out for some other agent, 
as it does not appear how the impulse of a comet could have made 
one planet roll round another at the time they both of them were 
driven off from the surface of the sun. 

If it should be asked, why new planets are not frequently ejected 
from the sun ? it may be answered, that after many large earthquakes 
many vents are left for the elastic vapours to escape, and hence, by 
the present appearance of the surface of our earth, earthquakes, 
prodigiously larger than any recorded in history, have existed; the 
.^ame circumstances may have affected the sun, on whose surface there 
are appearances of volcanos, as described above. Add to this, that 
some of the comets, and even the Georgium Sidus, may, for aught we 
know to the contrary, have been emitted from the sun, in more mo- 



172 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part i. 

dern days, and have been diverted from their course, and thus pre- 
vented from returning into the sun, by their approach to some of the 
older planets, which is somewhat countenanced by the opinion several 
philosophers have maintained, that the quantity of matter of the sun 
has decreased. Dr. Halley observed, that by comparing the propor- 
tion which the periodical time of the moon bore to that of the sun in 
former times, with the proportion between them at present, that the 
moon is found to be somewhat accelerated in respect to the sun. 
Pcmbcrton's View of Sir Isaac Newton, p. 247. And so large is the 
body of this mighty luminary, that all the planets thus thrown out of 
it would make scarce any perceptible diminution of it as mentioned 
above. The cavity mentioned above, as measured by Dr. Wilson, 
of 4000 miles in depth, not penetrating an hundreth part of the sun's 
semi-diameter ; and yet, as its width was many times greater than its 
depth, was large enough to contain a greater body than our terrestrial 
world. 

I do not mean to conceal, that from the laws of gravity unfolded by 
Sir Isaac Newton, supposing the sun to be a sphere, and to have no 
progressive motion, and not liable itself to be disturbed by the sup- 
posed projection of the planets from it, that such planets must return 
into the sun. The late Rev. William Ludlam, of Leicester, whose 
genius never met with reward equal to its merits, in a letter to me, 
dated January, 1787, after having shown, as mentioned above, that 
planets so projected from the sun would return to it, adds, " That a 
a body as large as the moon so projected, would disturb the motion of 
" the earth in its orbit, is certain ; but the calculation of such dis- 
" turbing forces is difficult. The body in some circumstances might 
" become a satellite, and both move round their common centre of 
u gravity, and that centre be carried in an annual orbit round the 
" sun." 

There are other circumstances which might have concurred at the 
iime of such supposed explosions, which would render this idea not 
impossible. 1. The planets might be thrown out of the sun at the 
time the sun itself was rising from chaos, and be attracted by other 
suns in their vicinity rising at the same time out of chaos, which would 
prevent them from returning into the sun. 2. The new planet, in its 
course or ascent from the sun, might explodeand eject a satellite, or 
perhaps more than one, and thus, by its course being effected, might 
not return into the sun. 3. If more planets were ejected at the same 
Ihne from the sun, they might attract anil disturb each others courso 
.it the time they left the body of the sun, or very soon afterwards, 
when they would be so much nearer each other. 



( 173 ) 



NOTE XVI.—CALCAREOUS EARTH. 

While Ocean vjraji'd it in his azure robe. 

Canto II. 1. 34. 

FROM having observed that many of the highest mountains of the 
world consist of lime-stone replete with shells, and that these moun- 
tains bear the marks of having been lifted up by subterraneous fires 
from the interior parts of the globe ; and as lime-stone replete with 
shells is found at the bottom of many of our deepest mines, some phi- 
losophers have concluded that the nucleus of the earth was for many 
ages covered with water, which was peopled with its adapted animals ; 
that the shells and bones of these animals, in a long series of time, pro- 
duced solid strata in the ocean surrounding the original nucleus. 

These strata consist of the accumulated exuvias of shell-fish — the 
animals perished age after age, but their shells remained, and, in 
progression of time, produced the amazing quantities of iime-stone 
which almost cover the earth. Other marine animals, called coral- 
loids, raised walls, and even mountains, by the congeries of their 
calcareous habitations ; these perpendicular coralline rocks make 
some parts of the southern ocean highly dangerous, as appears in the 
journals of Capt. Cooke. From contemplating the immense strata 
of lime-stone, both in respect to their extent and thickness, formed 
from these shells of animals, philosophers have been led to conclude, 
that much of the water of the sea has been converted into calcareous 
earth, by passing through their organs of digestion. The formation 
of calcareous earth seems more particulai'ly to be an animal process, 
as the formation of clay belongs to the vegetable economy ; thus the 
shells of crabs, and other testaceous fish, are annually re-produced 
from the mucous membrane beneath them ; the shells of eggs are first 
a mucous membrane, and the calculi of the kidneys, and those found 
in all other parts of our system, which sometimes contain calcareous 
earth, seem to originate from inflamed membranes ; the bones them- 
selves consist of calcareous earth united with the phosphoric or ani- 
mal acid, which may be separated by dissolving the ashes of calcined 
bones in the nitrous acid ; the various secretions of animals, as their 
saliva and urine, abound likewise with calcareous earth, as appears 
by the incrustations about the teeth, and the sediments of urine. It 
is probable that animal mucus is a previous process towards the for- 
mation of calcareous earth ; and that all the calcareous earth in the 
world, which is seen in lime-stones, marbles, spars, alabasters, marls 
(which make up the greatest part of the earth's crust, as far as it 
has yet been penetrated), have been formed originally by animal and 



BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I.. 

vegetable bodies from the mass of water, and that by these means 
the solid part of the terraqueous globe lias perpetuall) been in an in- 
creasing slate, and the water perpetually in a decreasing one. 

After the mountains of shells, and other recrements of aquatic 
animals, w< re elevated above the water, the upper heaps of tin in 
were gradually dissolved by rains and dews, and oozing through, were 
either perfectly crystallized in smaller cavities, and formed 
ous spar, or were imperfectly crystallized on the roofs of 1. : 
vitics, and produced stalactites; or, mixing with other undissolved 
shells beneath them, formed marbles, which were more or l< 
tallized and more or less pure ; or, lastly, after being dissolved, the 
water was exhaled from them in such a manner that the external 
parts became solid, and, forming an arch, prevented the internal 
parts from approaching each other so near as to become solid, and 
thus chalk was produced. I have specimens of chalk formed at the 
root of several stalactites, and in their central parts ; and of other 
stalactites, which are hollow like quills, from a similar cause, viz. 
from the external part of the stalactite hardening first by its evapo- 
ration, and thus either attracting the internal dissolved particles to 
the crust, or preventing them from approaching each other so as to 
form a solid body. Of these I saw many hanging from the arched 
roof of a cellar under the high street in Edinburgh. 

If this dissolved lime-stone met with vitriolic acid, it was converted 
into alabaster, parting at the same time with its fixable air. If it met 
with the fluor acid, it became fluor ; if with the siliceous acid, flint ; 
and when mixed with clay and sand, or either of them, acquires the 
name of marl. And under one or other of these forms, composes a 
great part of the solid globe of the earth. 

Another mode in which lime-stone appears is in the form of round 
granulated particles, but slightly cohering together : of this kind a 
bed extends over Lincoln heath, perhaps twenty miles long by ten 
wide. The form of this calcareous sand, its angles having been rub- 
bed off, and the flatness of its bed, evince that that part of the coun- 
try av;is so formed under water, the particles of sand having thus 
been rounded, like all other rounded pebbles. This round form of 
calcareous sand, and of other larger pebbles, is produced under water, 
partly by their being more or less soluble in water; and luii e the 
angular parts become dissolved, first, by their exposing a larger 
surface to the action of the menstruum, and, secondly, from their 
attrition against each other by the streams or tides, for a great length 
of time, successively, as they were collected, and, perhaps, when 
F them had not acquired their hardest 

This calcareous sand has generally been called ketton-stone, and 
believed u> resemble the spawn of fish; it has acquired a form so 



Note 16. CALCAREOUS EARTH. 1 7$ 

much rounder than siliceous sand, from its being of so much softer a 
texture, and also much more soluble in water. There are other soft 
calcareous stones called tupha, which are deposited from water on 
mosses, as :it Matlock, from which moss it is probable the water may 
receive something which induces it the readier to part with \u earth. 

In some lime-stones the living animals seem to have been buried, 
as well as their shells, during some great convulsion of nature. These 
shells contain a black coaly substance within them ; in others some 
phlogiston or volatile alkali, from the bodies of the dead animals, re- 
mains mixed with the stone, which is then called liver-stone, as it 
emits a sulphureous smell on being struck ; and there is a stratum 
about six inches thick extends a considerable way over the iron-ore 
at Wingerworth, near Chesterfield, in Derbyshire, which seems evi- 
dently to have been formed from the shells of fresh-water muscles. 

There is, however, another source of calcareous earth besides the 
aquatic one above described, and that is from the recrements of land 
animals and vegetables, as found in marls, which consist of various 
mixtures of calcareous earth, sand and clay, all of them, perhaps, 
principally from vegetable origin. 

Dr. Hutton is of opinion, that the rocks of marble have been sof- 
tened by fire into a fluid mass, which, he thinks, under immense pres- 
sure, might be done without the escape of their carbonic acid or fixed 
air. Edinb. Trans, vol. i. If this ingenious idea be allowed, it might 
account for the purity of some white marbles, as during their fluid 
state there might be time for their partial impurities, whether from 
the bodies of the animals which produced the shells, or from other 
extraneous matter, either to sublime to the uppermost part of the 
stratum, or to subside to the lowermost part of it. As a confirmation 
cf this theory of Dr. Hutton's, it may be added, that some calcareous 
stones are found mixed with lime, and have thence lost a part of 
their fixed air, or carbonic gas, as the bath-stone, and, on that ac- 
count, hardens on being exposed to the air, and, mixed with sulphur, 
produces calcareous liver of sulphur. Falconer on Bath-water, vol. i. 
p. M6 and p. 257. Mr. Monnet found lime in powder in the moun- 
tains of Auvergne, and suspected it of volcanic origin. Kirwan's 
Miner, p. 22. 



( IT6 ) 

NOTE XVII.— MORASSES. 

Gnomrs ! you then taught transuding deivs to pass 
Through time-fall'n woods, and root-inwovc num 

Canto II. ]. 115. 

WHERE woods have repeatedly grown and perished, morasses 
are, in process of time, produced, and by their long roots, fill up the 
interstices till the whole becomes, for many yards deep, a mass of 
vegetation. This fact is curiously verified by an account given many 
years ago by the Earl of Cromartie, of which the following is a short 
abstract. 

In the year 1651, the Earl of Cromartie, being then nineteen years 
of age, saw a plain in the parish of Lockburn covered over with a 
firm standing wood, which was so old that not only the trees had no 
green leaves upon them, but the bark was totally thrown off, which, 
he was there informed by the old countrymen, was the universal man- 
ner in which fir-woods terminated, and that in twenty or thirty vears 
the trees would cast themselves up by the roots. About fifteen years 
after he had occasion to travel the same way, and observed that there 
■was not a tree, nor the appearance of a root of any of them ; but in 
their place, the whole plain where the wood stood was covered with 
a flat green moss, or morass ; and on asking the country people what 
was become of the wood, he was informed that no one had been at 
the trouble to carry it away, but that it had all been overturned by 
the wind, that the trees lay thick over each other, and that the moss 
or bog had overgrown the whole timber, which, they added, was oc- 
casioned by the moisture which came down from the high hills above 
it, and stagnated upon the plain, and that nobody could yet pass over 
it, which, however, his Lordship was so incautious as to attempt, 
and slipt up to the arm-pits. Before the year 1699, that whole piece 
of ground was become a solid moss, wherein the peasants then dug 
turf or peat, which, however, was not yet of the best sort. Phil. 
Trans. No. 330. Abridg. vol. v. p. 272. 

Morasses in great length of time undergo variety of changes, first 
by elutriation, and afterwards by fermentation, and the consequent 
heat. 1. By Avater perpetually oozing through them, the most solu- 
ble parts are first washed away, as the essential salts : the 
ther with the salts from animal recrements, arc carried down the 
rivers into the sea, where all of them seem to decompose each other 
except the marine salt. Hence the ashes of peat contain little or no 
vegetable alkali, and arc not used in the countries where peat con- 
stitutes the fuel of the lower people, for the purpose of washing linen. 



Note 17. MORASSES. 8? 

The second thing which is always seen oozing from morasses, is iron 
in solution, which produces chalybeate springs, from whence deposi- 
tions of ochre and variety of iron ores. The third elutriation seems 
to consist of vegetable acid, which by means unknown appears to be 
converted into all other acids. 1. Into marine and nitrous acids, as 
mentioned above. 2. Into vitriolic acid, which is found in some mo- 
rasses so plentifully as to preserve the bodies of animals from putre- 
faction which have been buried in them, and this acid, carried away 
by rain and dews, and meeting with calcareous earth, produces gyp- 
sum or alabaster ; with clay it produces alum, and deprived of its vi- 
tal air produces sulphur. 3. Fluor acid, which being washed away, 
and meeting with calcareous earth, produces fluor or cubic spar. 4. 
The siliceous acid, which seems to have been disseminated in great 
quantity either by solution in water or by solution in air, and appears 
to have produced the sand in the sea, uniting with calcareous earth, 
previously dissolved in that element, from which were afterwards 
formed some of the grit-stone rocks by means of a siliceous or calca- 
reous cement. By its union with the calcareous earth of the morass, 
other strata of siliceous sand have been produced ; and by the mix- 
ture of this with clay and lime arose the beds of marie. 

In other circumstances, probably where less moisture has prevailed, 
morasses seem to have undergone a fermentation, as other vegetable 
matter, new hay, for instance, is liable to do from the great quantity 
of sugar it contains. From the great heat thus produced in the lower 
parts of immense beds of morass, the phlogistic part, or oil, or as- 
phaltum, becomes distilled, and rising into higher strata, becomes 
again condensed, forming coal-beds of greater or less purity, accord- 
ing to their greater or less quantity of inflammable matter ; at the 
same time the clay-beds become purer or less so, as the phlogistic 
part is more or less completely exhaled from them. Though coal 
and clay are frequently produced in this manner, yet I have no doubt 
but that they are likewise often produced by elutriation ; in situations 
on declivities the clay is washed away down into the valleys, and the 
phlogistic part or coal left behind ; this circumstance is seen in many 
valleys near the beds of rivers, which are covered recently by a 
whitish impure clay, called water-clay, See note XIX. XX. and 
XXIII. 

Lord Cromartie has furnished another curious observation on 
morasses in the paper above referred to. In a moss near the town 
of Elgin, in Murray, though there is no river or water which com- 
municates with the moss, yet for three or four feet of depth in the 
moss there are little shell-fish resembling oysters, with living fish in 
chem in great quantities, though no such fish are found in the adjacent 
rivers, nor even in the water-pits in the moss, but only in the solid 



178 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part T. 

substance of the moss. This curious fact not only accounts for the 
shells sometimes found on the surf.ee of coals, anil in the clay above 
them, but also for a thin stratum of shells which sometimes exEl 
over iron-ore 



NOTE XVIII.— IRON. 

Cold waves, immersed, the glowing mass congeal, 
And turn to adamant the hissing Stiel. 

Canto II. 1. 191. 

AS iron is formed near the surface of the earth, it becomes exposed 
to streams of water and of air more than most other metallic bodies, 
and thence becomes combined with oxygene, or vital air. and ap- 
pears very frequently in its ca'.ciform state, as in variety of ochres. 
Manganese and zinc, and sometimes lead, are also found near the 
surface of the earth, and, on that account, become combined with 
vital air, and are exhibited in their calciform state. 

The avidity with which iron unites with oxygene, or vital air, in 
■which process much heat is given out from the combining materials, 
is shown by a curious experiment of M. Ingenhouz. A fine iron wire, 
t\\ isted spirally, is fixed to a cork ; on the point of the spiie is fixed 
a match made of agaric, dipped in solution of nitre ; the match is 
then ignited, and the wire with the cork put immediately into a bottle 
full of vital air; the match first burns vividly, and the iron soon take:, 
fire, and consumes with brilliant sparks till it is reduced to small 
brittle globules, gaining an addition of about one third of its weight 
bv its union with vital air. Annates de Chimie. Traite de Chimit. 
par Lavoisier, c. hi. 

STEEL. 

It is probably owing to a total deprivation of vital air, which it 
holds with so great avidity, that iron, on Icing kept many hours or 
days in ignited charcoal, becomes converted into steel, and thence 
acquires the faculty of being welded, when red hot, long before it 
melts, and also the power of becoming hard when immersed in 
cold water; both which I suppose depend on the same cause, that is, 
on its being a worse Conductor of heat than other metals; and hence 
the mii lace both acquires heat much sooner, and losc> it much sooner, 
than the internal parts of it, in this circumstance resembling 

Vv*h< n steel is made very hot, and suddenl) 



Note 18. IRON. 1,-y 

■water, and moved about in it, the surface of the steel becomes cooled 
first, and thus producing a kind of case or arch over the internal part, 
pre vents that internal part from contracting quite so much as it other- 
wise would do, whence it becomes brittler and harder, like the glass 
drops called Prince Rupert's drops, which are made by dropping 
melted glass into cold water. This idea is countenanced by the cir* 
cumstance that hardened steel is specifically lighter than steel which 
is more gradually coo'.ed. (Nicholson's Chemistry, p. 313.) Why 
the brittleness and hardness of steel or glass should keep pace, or be 
companions to each other, may be difficult to conceive. 

When a steel spring is forcibly bent till it break, it requires less 
power to bend it through the first inch than the second, and less 
through the second than the third. The same I suppose to hap- 
pen if a wire be distended till it break, by hanging weights to it. 
This shows that the particles may be forced from each other, to a 
small distance, by less power than is necessary to make them recede 
to a greater distance ; in this circumstance, perhaps, the attraction 
of cohesion differs from that of gravitation, which exerts its power 
inversely as the squares of the distance. Hence it appears, that if 
the innermost particles of a steel bar, by cooling the external surface 
first, are kept from approaching each other, so nearly as they other- 
wise would do, that they become in the situation of the particles on the 
convex side of a bent spring, and cannot be forced farther from each 
other except by a greater power than would have been necessary to 
have made them recede thus far. And, secondly, that if they be 
forced a little farther from each other they separate : this may be 
exemplified by laying two magnetic needles parallel to each other, the 
contrary poles together, then drawing them longitudinally from each 
other, they will slide with small force till they begin to separate, and 
will then require a stronger force to really separate them. Hence it 
appears, that hardness and brittleness depend on the same circum- 
stance, that the particles are removed to a greater distance from each 
other, and thus resist any power more forcibly which is applied to 
displace them farther ; this constitutes hardness. And, secondly, if 
they are displaced by such applied force, they immediately separate, 
and this constitutes brittleness. 

Steel may be thus rendered too brittle for many purposes, on which 
account artists have means of softening it again, by exposing it to cer- 
tain degrees of heat, for the construction of different kinds of tools, 
which is called tempering it. Some artists plunge large tools in very 
cold water as soon as they are completely ignited, and moving them 
about, take them out as soon as they cease to be luminous beneath the 
water ; they are then rubbed quickly with a file, or on sand, to clean 
die surface ; the heat which the metal still retains soon begins to pro> 



ISO BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I, 

ducc a succession of colours : if a hard temper be required, the piece 
is clipped again, and stirred about in cold water as soon as the yellow 
tinge appears; if it be cooled when the purple tinge appears, it be- 
comes fit for gravers' tools, used in working upon metals ; if cooled 
while blue, it is proper for springs. Nicholson's Chemistry, p. 313. 
Keir's Chemical Dictionary. 

MODERN PRODUCTION OF IRON. 

The recent production of iron is evinced from the chalybeate waters 
•which flow from morasses, which lie upon gravel-beds, and which 
must, therefore, have produced iron after those gravel-beds were 
raised out of the sea. On the south side of the road between Cheadle 
and Okeymoor, in Staffordshire, yellow stains of iron are seen to 
penetrate the gravel from a thin morass on its surface. There is a 
fissure eight or ten feet wide, in a gravel-bed on the eastern side of 
the hollow road, ascending the hill about a mile from Trentham, in 
Staffordshire, leading toward Drayton, in Shropshire, which fissure 
is filled up with nodules of iron-ore. A bank of sods is now raised 
against this fissure to prevent the loose iron nodules from falling into 
the turnpike road, and thus this natural curiosity is at present con- 
cealed from travellers. A similar fissure, in a bed of marl, and filled 
up with iron nodules, and with some large pieces of flint, is seen on 
the eastern side of the hollow road ascending the hill from the turn- 
pike-house, about a mile from Derby, in the road towards Burton. 
And another such fissure, filled with iron nodes, appears about half 
a mile from Newton-Solney, in Derbyshire, in the road to Burton, 
near the summit of the hill. These collections of iron and of flint 
must have been produced posterior to the elevation of all those hills, 
r.nd were thence evidently of vegetable or animal origin. To which 
should be added, that iron is found, in general, in beds either near 
the surface of the earth, or stratified with clay, coals, or argillaceous 
grit, which are themselves productions of the modern world, that is, 
from the recrements of vegetables and air-breathing animals. 

Not only iron, but manganese, calamy, and even copper and lead, 
appear, in some instances, to have been of recent production. Iron 
and manganese are detected in all vegetable productions ; and it is 
probable other metallic bodies might be found to exist in vegetable or 
animal matters, if we had tests to detect them in very minute quan- 
tities. Manganese and calamy arc found in beds like iron near the 
surface of the earth, and in a calciform state, which countenances 
their modern production. The recent production of calamy, one of 
the ores of zinc, appears from its frequently incrusting calcareous 
'-par, in its descent from the surface of the earth into the uppermost 



Note 18. IRON. 151 

fissures of the lime-stone mountains of Derbyshire. That the calamy 
has been carried, by its solution or diffusion in water, into these cavi- 
ties, and not by its ascent from below in form of steam, is evinced 
from its not only forming a crust over the dogtooth spar, but by its 
afterwards dissolving or destroying the sparry crystal. I have speci- 
mens of calamy in the form of dogtooth spar two inches high, which 
are hollow, and stand half an inch above the diminished sparry crys- 
tal on which they were formed, like a sheath a great deal too big for 
it : this seems to show, that this process was carried on in water, 
otherwise, after the calamy had incrusted its spar, and dissolved its 
surface, so as to form a hollow cavern over it, it could not act further 
upon it except by the interposition of some medium. As these spars 
and calamy are formed in the fissures of mountains, they must both 
have been formed after the elevations of those mountains. 

In respect to the recent production of copper, it was before ob- 
served, in note on Canto II. 1. 398, that the' summit of the grit-stone 
mountain at Hawkstone, in Shropshire, is tinged with copper, which, 
from the appearance of the blue stains, seems to have descended to 
the parts of the rock beneath. I have a calciform ore of copper 
consisting of the hollow crusts of cubic cells, which has evidently been 
formed on crystals of fluor, which it has eroded in the same manner 
as the calamy erodes the calcareous crystals ; from whence may be 
deduced, in the same manner, the aqueous solution or diffusion, as 
well as the recent production of this calciform ore of copper. 

Lead, in small quantities, is sometimes found in the fissures of coal- 
beds, which fissures are previously covered with spar; and some- 
times in nodules of iron-ore. Of the former I have a specimen from 
near Caulk, in Derbyshire, and of the latter from Colebrook Dale, 
m Shropshire. Though all these facts show that some metallic bodies 
are formed from vegetable or animal recrements, as iron, and per- 
haps manganese and calamy, all which are found near the surface of 
the earth ; yet as the other metals are found only in fissures of rocks, 
which penetrate to unknown depths, they may be wholly or in part 
produced by ascending steams from subterraneous fires, as mentioned 
in note on Canto II. 1. 398. 

SEPTARIA OF IRON-STONE. 

Over some lime works at Walsall, in Staffordshire, I observed 
iome years ago a stratum of iron earth about six inches thick, full of 
very large cavities ; these cavities were evidently produced when the 
material passed from a semi-fluid state into a solid one ; as the frit of 
the potters, or a mixture of clay and water, is liable to crack in dry- 
ing \ which is owing to the further contraction of the internal part, after 



1&2 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

the crust has become hard. These hollows are liable to receive extra- 
neous matter, as, I believe, g\psum, and sometimes pur and even 
lead; a carious specimen of the last was presented to me by Mr. 
Darby, ofColebrook Dale, which contains iii its cavity some ounces of 
tead-orc. But there are other septaria of iron-stone, which seem to 
have had a very different origin, their cavities having been formed 
in cooling or congealing from an ignited state, as is ingeniously de- 
duced by Dr. Hutton, from their internal structure. Edinb. Trans, 
vol. i. p. 246. The volcanic origin of these curious septaria appears 
to me to be further evinced from their form and the places where 
they are found. They consist of oblate spheroids, and are f >und in 
many parts of the earth totally detached from the beds in which they 
lie, as at East-Lothian, in Scotland. Two of these, which now lie 
before me, were found, with many others, immersed in argillaceous 
shale, or shiver, surrounded by broken lime-stone mountains, at 
Bradbourn, near Ashbourn, in Derbyshire, and were presented to 
me by Mr. Buxton, a gentleman of that town. One of these is about 
fifteen inches in its equatorial diameter, and about six inches in its 
polar one, and contains beautiful star-like septaria, incrusted, and iu 
part filled with calcareous spar. The other is about eight inches in 
its equatorial diameter, and ab >ut four inches in its polar diameter, 
and is quite solid, but shows on its internal surface marks of different 
colours, as if a beginning separation had taken place. Now, as these 
septaria contain fifty per cent, of iron, according to Dr. Hutton, they 
would soften or melt into a semi-fluid globule, by subterraneous fire, 
by less heat than the lime-stone in their vicinity ; and if they were 
ejected through a hole or fissure, would gain a circular motion along 
with their progressive one, by their greater friction or adhesion to one 
side of the hole. This whirling motion would produce the oblate 
spheroidical form which they possess, and which, as far as I know, 
cannot in any other way be accounted for. They would then harden 
in the air as they rose into the colder parts of the atmosphere ; and a* 
they descended into so soft a material as shale or shiver, their forms 
would not be injured in their fall ; and their presence in materials so 
different from themselves becomes accounted for. 

About the tropics of the large septarium above-mentioned, are cir- 
cular eminent lines, such as might have been left if it had been 
coarsely turned in a lath. These lines seem to consist of fluid matter, 
which seems to have exuded in circular zones, as their edges appear 
blunted or retracted; and the septarium seems to have split easier in 
such sections parallel to its equator. Now, as tin- crust would firsl 
begin to cool and harden after its ejection in a semi-fluid state, and 
the equatorial diameter would become gradually en arged a 
in the air ; the. internal parts being softer, would >li 



Note 19 FLINT. 183' 

polar crust, which might crack, and permit part of the semi-fluid to 
exude, and it is probable the adhesion would thus become less in sec- 
tions parallel to the equator. Which further confirms this idea of 
the production of these curious septaria. A new-cast cannon ball, 
red-hot, with its crust only solid, if it were shot into the air, would 
probably burst in its passage, as it would consist of a more fluid ma- 
terial than these septaria; and thus, by discharging a shower of liquid 
iron, would produce more dreadful combustion, if used in war, than 
could be effected by a ball which had been cooled and was heated 
again, since, in the latter case, the ball could not have its internal parts 
made hotter than the crust of it, without first losing its form. 



NOTE XIX FLINT. 

Transmute to glittering Flints her chalky lands, 
Or sink on Ocea?z's bed in countless sands. 

Canto II. 1. 21?. 

1. SILICEOUS ROCKS. 

THE great masses of siliceous sand which lie in rocks upon the beds 
of lime-stone, or which are stratified With clay, coal, and iron-ore, are 
evidently produced in the decomposition of vegetable or animal mat- 
ters, as explained in the note on morasses. Hence the impressions of 
vegetable roots, and even whole trees, are often found in sand-stone, 
as well as in coals and iron-ore. In these sand-rocks both the siliceous 
acid and the calcareous base seem to be produced from the materials 
of the morass ; for though the presence of a siliceous acid and of a 
calcareous base have not yet been separately exhibited from flints, 
yet from the analogy of flint to fluor, and gypsum, and marble, and 
from the conversion of the latter into flint, there can be little doubt 
of their existence. 

These siliceous sand-rocks are either held together by a siliceous 
cement, or have a greater or less portion of clay in them, which in 
some acts as a cement to the siliceous crystals, but in others is in such 
great abundance that in burning them they become an imperfect por- 
celain, and are then used to repair the roads ; as at Chesterfield, in 
Derbyshire : these are called argillaceous grit by Mr. Kirwan. In 
other places, a calcareous matter cements the ciystals together; and 
in other places the siliceous crystals lie in loose strata, under the 
marl, in the form of white sand ; as at Norraington, about a mile 
from Derby. 

Part I. 2 C 



184 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

The lowest beds of siliceous sand-stone, produced from n 
seem to obtain their acid from the morass, and their calcareous base 
from the lime-stone on which it rests. These beds possess a siliceous 
cement, and from their greater purity and hardness are med for 
coarse grinding-stones and scythe stones, and are situated on the 
edges of lime-stone countries, having lost the other strata of coals, 
or clay, or iron, which were originally produced above them. Such 
are the sand-rocks incumbent on lime-stone near Matlock, in Derby- 
shire. As these siliceous sand-rocks contain no marine productions 
scattered amongst them, they appear to have been elevated, torn to 
pieces, and many fragments of them scattered over the adjacent 
country, by explosions, from fires within the morass from which they 
have been formed, and which dissipated every thing inflammable 
above and beneath them, except some stains of iron with which they 
are in some places spotted. If these sand-rocks had been accumu- 
lated beneath the sea, and elevated along with the beds of lime-stone 
on which they rest, some vestiges of marine shells, either in their 
siliceous or calcareous state, must have been discerned amongst them, 

2. SILICEOUS TREES. 

In many of these sand-rocks are found the impressions of vegeta- 
ble roots, which seem to have been the most unchangeable parts of the 
plant, as shells and shark's teeth are found in chalk beds, from their 
being the most unchangeable parts of the animal. In other instances 
the wood itself is penetrated, and whole trees converted into flint ; 
specimens of which I have by me, from near Coventry, and from a 
gravel-pit in Shropshire, near Child's Archal, in the road to Dray- 
ton. Other polished specimens of vegetable flints abound in the cabi- 
nets of the curious, which evidently show the concentric circles of 
woodv fibres, and their interstices filled with whiter siliceous matter, 
with the branching off* of the knots when cut horizontally, and the 
parallel lines of wood when cut longitudinally, with uncommon beauty 
and variety. Of these I possess some beautiful specimens, which 
were presented to mc by the Earl of Uxbridge. 

The colours of these siliceous vegetables are generally brown, 
from the iron, I suppose, or manganese, which induced them to crvs- 
talize or to fuse more easily. Some of the cracks of the wood in 
ire filled with white flint or calcedony, and others of them 
remain hpllow, lined with innumerable small crystals, tinged with 
iron, which 1 suppose had a share in converting their calcareous mat- 
ter into siliceous crystals, because the crystals called Peak-diamonds 
are always found bedded in an ochreous earth ; and those called Bris- 
tol-stones are situated on lime-stone coloured with iron. Mr. F« 



Note 19. FLINT. 185 

French presented me with a congeries of siliceous crystals, which he 
gathered on the crater (as he supposes) of an extinguished volcano at 
Cromach Water, in Cumberland. The crystals are about an inch 
high, in the shape of dogtooth or calcareous spar, covered with a 
dark feruginous matter. The bed on which they rest is about an 
inch in thickness, and is stained with iron on its under surface. This 
curious fossil shows the transmutation of calcareous earth into sili- 
ceous, as much as the siliceous shells which abound in the cabinets of 
the curious. There may some time be discovered in this age of 
science, a method of thus impregnating wood with liquid flint, which 
would produce pillars for the support, and tiles for the covering of 
houses, which would be uninflammable, and endure as long as the 
earth beneath them. 

That some siliceous productions have been in a fluid state without 
much heat at the time of their formation, appears from the vegetable 
flints above described not having quite lost their organized appearance ; 
from shells, and coralloids, and entrochi being converted into flint 
without losing their form ; from the bason of calcedony round Giesar 
in Iceland, and from the experiment of Mr. Bergman, who obtained 
thirteen regular formed crystals by suffering the powder of quartz to 
remain in a vessel with fluor acid for two years : these crystals were 
about the size of small peas, and were not so hard as quartz. Opusc. 
de Terra Silicea, p. 33. Mr. Archard procured both calcareous and 
siliceous crystals, one from calcareous earth, and the other from the 
earth of alum, both dissolved in water impregnated with fixed air ; 
the water filtrating very slowly through a porous bottom of baked 
clay. See Journal de Physique, for January, 1778* 

3. AGATES, ONYXES, SCOTS-PEBBLES. 

In small cavities of these sand-rocks, I am informed, the beautiful 
siliceous nodules are found which are called Scots-pebbles ; and which, 
on being cut in different directions, take the names of agates, onyxes, 
sardonyxes, &c. according to the colours of the lines or strata which 
they exhibit. Some of the nodules are hollow and filled with crystals, 
others have a nucleus of less compact siliceous matter, which is gene- 
rally white, surrounded with many concentric strata, coloured with 
iron, and other alternate strata of white agate or calcedony, some- 
times to the number of thirty. 

I think these nodules bear evident marks of their having been in 
perfect fusion by either heat alone, or by water and heat, under great 
pressure, according to the ingenious theory of Dr. Hutton ; but I do 
not imagine, that they were injected into cavities from materials from 
without, but that some vegetables or parts of vegetables containing 



180 BOTANIC GARDEN. 

more iron or manganese than others, facilitated the compl< - 

thus destroying the vestiges of vegetable organization, which w*f| 

conspicuous in the siliceous trees above-mentioned* Some of these 
nodules being hollow and lined with crystals, and others containing a 
nucleus of white siliceous matter of a looser texture, show they war 
composed of the materials then existing in the cavity ; which, con- 
sisting before of loose sand, must take up less space when fused into 
a solid mass. 

These siliceous nodules resemble the nodules of iron-stone men- 
tioned in note on Canto II. 1. Ifi3, in respect to their postt 
great number of concentric spheres, coloured generally with iron ; 
but they differ in this circumstance, that the concentric spheres gene- 
rally obey the form of the external crust, and in their not possessing 
a chalybeate nucleus. The stalactites formed on the roofs of caverns 
are often coloured in concentric strata, by their coats being spread over 
each other at different times ; and some of them, as the cupreous 
ones, possess great beauty from this formation ; but as these are 
necessarily more or less of a cylindrical or conic form, the nodules or 
globular flints above described cannot have been constructed in this, 
manner. To what law of nature then is to be referred the produc- 
tion of such numerous concentric spheres ? I suspect to the law of 
congelation. 

When salt and water are exposed to severe frosty air, the salt is 
said to be precipitated as the water freezes ; that is, as the heat in, 
•which it was dissolved is withdrawn : where the experiment is tried 
in a bowl or bason, this may be true, as the surface freezes first, 
and the salt is found at the bottom. But in a fluid exposed in a thin 
phial, I found, by experiment, that the extraneous matter previously 
dissolved by the heat, in the mixture, was not simply set at liberty to 
subside, but was detruded or pushed backward as the ice was pro- 
duced. The experiment was this: About two ounces of a solution of 
blue vitriol were accidentally frozen in a thin phial ; the glass was 
cracked and fallen to pieces, the ice was dissolved, and I found a 
pillar of blue vitriol standing erect on the bottom of the broken bot- 
tle. Nor is this power of congelation more extraordinary than that, 
by its powerful and sudden expansion, it should burst iron shells and 
cochorns, or throw out the plugs with which the water was secured 
in them, above one hundred and thirty yards, according to the expe- 
riments at Quebec, by Major Williams. Edinb. Transact, vol. ii. 
p. 23. 

In some siliceous nodules which now lie before me, the external crust 
•for about the tenth of an inch consists of white agate, in others it || 
much thinner, and in some much thicker; corresponding with tbit 
crust there arc from twenty to thirty superincumbent strata, of alter- 



ivoxE x-j. t'LiM. m 

nately darker and lighter colour ; whence it appears, that the exter- 
nal crust, as it cooled or froze, propelled from it the iron or man- 
ganese which was dissolved in it ; this receded till it had formed an 
arch or vault strong enough to resist its further protrusion ; then the 
next inner sphere or stratum, as it cooled or froze, propelled for- 
wards its colouring matter in the same manner, till another arch or 
sphere produced sufficient resistance to this frigorcsctnt expulsion. 
Some of them have detruded their colouring matter quite to the 
centre, the rings continuing to become darker as they are nearer 
it ; in others the chalybeate arch seems to have stopped half an inch 
from the centre, and become thicker by having attracted to itself 
the irony matter from the white nucleus, owing probably to its 
cooling less precipitately in the central parts than at the surface of 
the pebble. 

A similar detrusion of a marly matter, in circular arches or vaults, 
obtains in the salt mines in Cheshire ; from whence Dr. Hutton very 
ingeniously concludes, that the salt must have been liquified by heat, 
which would seem to be much confirmed by the above theory. 
Edinb. Trans, vol. i. p. 244. 

I cannot conclude this account of Scots-pebbles without observing, 
that some of them, on being sawed longitudinally asunder, seem 
still to possess some vestiges of the cylindrical organization of vegeta- 
bles ; others possess a nucleus of white agate, much resembling some 
bulbous roots, with their concentric coats, or the knots in elm-roots 
or crab-trees ; some of these, I suppose, were formed in the manner 
above explained, during the congelation of masses of melted flint 
and iron ; others may have been formed from a vegetable nucleus, 
and retain some vestiges of the organization of the plant. 

4. SAND OF THE SEA. 

The great abundance of siliceous sand at the bottom of the ocean 
may, in part, be washed down from the siliceous rocks above de- 
scribed ; but in general, I suppose it derives its acid only from the 
vegetable and animal matter of morasses, which is carried down 
by floods or by the atmosphere, and becomes united in the sea with 
its calcareous base, from shells and coralloids, and thus assumes its 
crystalline form at the bottom of the ocean, and is there intermixed 
with gravel, or other matters, washed from the mountains in its 
vicinity. 



BOTANIC GARDEN. 



5. CHERT, OR PETROSILEX. 

The rocks of marble are often alternately intermixed with strata 
of chert, or coarse flint, and this in beds from one to three feet 
thick, as at Ham and Matlock, or of less than the tenth of an inch 
in thickness, as a mile or two from Bake well, in the road to Buxton. 
It is difficult to conceive in what manner ten or twenty strata of ei- 
ther lime-stone or flint, of different shades of white and b.ack, could 
be laid quite regularly over each other from sediments, or precipita- 
tions from the sea ; it appears to me much easier to comprehend, by- 
supposing, with Dr. Hutton, that both the solid rocks of marble and 
the flint had been fused by great heat (or by heat and water), under 
immense pressure; by its cooling, or congealing, the colouring matte: - 
might be detruded, and form parallel or curvilinear strata, as above 
explained. 

The colouring matter, both of lime-stone and flint, was probably 
owing to the flesh of peculiar animals, as well as the siliceous acid, 
which converted some of the lime-stone into flint ; or to some strata 
of shell-fish having been overwhelmed when alive, with new mate- 
rials; while others, dying in their natural situations, would lose their 
fleshy part, either by its putrid solution in the water, or by its being 
eaten by other sea insects. I have some calcareous fossil shells 
which contain a black coaly matter in them, which was evidently the 
body of the animal, and others of the same kind filled with spar in- 
stead of it. The Labradore stone has, I suppose, its colours from 
the nacre, or mother-pearl shells, from which it was probably pro- 
duced. And there is a stratum of calcareous matter about six oi 
eight inches thick, at Wingerworth, in Derbyshire, over the iron- 
beds, which is replete with shells of fresh- water muscles, and evi- 
dently obtains its dark colour from them, as mentioned in note XVI. 
Many nodules of flint resemble, in colour as well in form, the shells 
of the echinus, or sea-urchin ; others resemble some coralloids, both 
in form and colour ; and M. Arduini found in the Monte de Pan- 
erasio, red flints branching like corals, from whence they seem to 
have obtained both their form and their colour. Ferber's Travels in 
Italy, p. 42. 

6. NODULES OF FLINT IN CHALK-BEDS. 

As the nodules of flint found in chalk-beds possess no marks of 
having been rounded by attrition or solution, 1 conclude thai thej have. 
gained their form, as well as their dark colour, from the Besh of the 
shell-fish from which they had their origin; but which have been so 



Note 19. FLINT. 189 

completely fused by heat, or heat and water, as to obliterate all ves- 
tiges of the shell, in the same manner as the nodules of agate and 
onyx were produced from parts of vegetables, but which had been 
so completely fused as to obliterate all marks of their organization, 
or as many iron-nodules have obtained their form and origin from 
peculiar vegetables. 

Some nodules in chalk-beds consist of shells of echini filled up with 
chalk, the animal having been dissolved away by putrescence in 
water, or eaten by other sea insects ; other shells of echini, in which I 
suppose the animal's body remained, are converted into flint, but still 
retain the form of the shell. Others, I suppose, as above, being 
more completely fused, have become flint-coloured by the animal 
flesh, but without the exact form either of the flesh or shell of the 
animal. Many of these are hollow within, and lined with crystals, 
like the Scots-pebbles above described ; but as the colouring matter of 
animal bodies differs but little from each other compared with those 
of vegetables, these flints vary less in their colours than those above- 
mentioned. At the same time as they cooled irt concentric spheres, 
like the Scots-pebbles, thev often possess faint rings of colours, and 
always break in conchoide forms like them. 

This idea of the productions of nodules of flint in chalk-beds, is 
countenanced from the iron which generally appears as these flints 
become decomposed by the air, which, by uniting with the iron in 
their composition, reduces it from a vitrescent state to that of calx, 
and thus renders it visible. And, secondly, by there being no appear- 
ance in chalk-beds of a string or pipe of siliceous matter connecting 
one nodule with another, which must have happened if the siliceous 
matter, or its acid, had been injected from without, according to the 
idea of Dr. Hutton. And, thirdly, because many of them have very 
large cavities at their centres, which should not have happened had 
they been formed by the injection of a material from without. 

When shells or chalk are thus converted from calcareous to sili- 
ceous matter by the flesh of the animal, the new flint being heavier 
than the shell or chalk, occupies less space than the materials it was 
produced from ; this is the cause of frequent cavities within them, 
where the whole mass has not been completely fused and pressed 
together. In Derbyshire there are masses of coralloid and other 
shells which have become siliceous, and are thus left with large 
vacuities, sometimes within and sometimes on the outside of the 
remaining form of the shell, like the French mill-stones, and, I sup- 
pose, might serve the same purpose: the gravel of the Derive. ,t is 
full of specimens of this kind. 

Since writing the above, I have received a very ingenious account 
of chalk-beds from Dr. Menish, of Chelmsford. He distinguishes 



190 BOTAlnC GARDEN. Part I, 

chalk-beds into three kinds; such as have been raised from the sea 
with little disturbance of their strata, as the cliffy of Dover and Mar- 
gate, which he terms entire chalk. Another state of chalk is where 
iflared much derangement, as the banks of the Thames at 
id and Dartford. And a third state, where fragments of 
chalk have been rounded by water, which he terms alluvial chalk. 
In the first of these situations of chalk he observes, that the flint lies 
in strata horizontally, generally indistinct nodules; but that he has 
Observed two instances of solid plates or strata of flint, from an inch 
to two inches in thickness, interposed between the chalk-beds; one 
o\ these is in a chalk-bank by the road side, at Berkhamstead, the 
Other in a bank on the road from Chatham leading to Canterbury. 
Dr. Menish has further Observed, that many of the echini arc crushed 
in their form, and yet filled with flint, which has taken the form of 
the crushed shell ; and that though many flint nodules are hollow, yet 
that in some echini the siliceum seems to have enlarged as it passed 
from a fluid to a solid state, as it swells out in a protuberance at the 
mouth and anus of the shell ; and that though these shells arc so filled 
with flint, yet that in many places the shell itself remains calcareous. 
These strata of nodules and plates of flint seem to countenance their 
origin from the flesh of a stratum of animals which perished by some 
natural violence, and were buried in their shells. 

7. ANGLES OF SILICEOUS SAND. 

In many rocks of siliceous sand the particles retain their angular 
form, and in some beds of loose sand, of which there is one of consi- 
derable puritv a few yards beneath the marl at Normington, about a 
mile south of Derby. Other siliceous sands have had their angles 
rounded oft', like the pebbles in gravel-beds'. These seem to owe their 
globular form to two causes ; one to their attrition against each other, 
when they may for centuries have lain at the bottom of the sea, or of 
rivers, where they may have been progressively accumulated, and 
thus progressively at the same time rubbed upon each other by the 
dashing of the water, and where they would be more easily rolled 
over each other by their gravity being so much less than in air. This 
is evidently now going on in the river Derwent ; for though there are 
no Lime-Stone rocks for ten or fifteen miles above Derby, \ I 
part of the river-gravel at Derby consists ofj lime-stone nodules, 
whose angles are quite worn oft' in their descent down the stream. 

There is, however, another cause which must have contributed to 
round the angles both of calcareous and siliceous fragments, and thai 
18, their solubility m water; calcareous earth is perpetually found 
suspended in the waters which pass over it; and the earth of flint.--. 



Note 19. FLINT. 191 

was observed by Bergman to be contained in water in the proportion 
of one grain to a gallon. Kirwan's Mineralogy, p. 107. In boiling 
water, however, it is soluble in much greater proportion, as appears 
from the siliceous earth sublimed in the distillation of fiuor acid in 
glass vessels, and from the basons of calcedony which surrounded the 
jets of hot water near Mount Hecla, in Iceland. Troil on Iceland. 
It is probable most siliceous sands or pebbles have, at some ages of 
the world, been long exposed to aqueous steams raised by subterra- 
nean fires. And if fragments of stone were long immersed in a fluid 
menstruum, their angular parts would be first dissolved, on account 
of their greater surface. 

Many beds of siliceous gravel are cemented together by a siliceous 
cement, and are called breccia, as the plumb-pudding stones of Hart- 
fordshire, and the walls of a subterraneous temple excavated by Mr. 
Curzon, at Hagley, near Rugely, in Staffordshire : these may have 
been exposed to great heat as they were immersed inAvater; which 
water, under great pressure of superincumbent materials, may have 
been rendered red-hot, as in Papin's digester ; and have thus pos- 
sessed powers of solution with which we are unacquainted. 

8. BASALTES AND GRANITES. 

Another source of siliceous stones is from the granite, or basal tes, 
or porphyries, which are of different hardnesses, according to the 
materials of their composition, or to the fire they have undergone ; 
such are the stones of Arthur's-hill, near Edinburgh ; of the Giant's 
Causeway, in Ireland ; and of Charnwood Forest, in Leicestershire ; 
the uppermost stratum of which last seems to have been cracked 
either by its elevation, or by its hastily cooling, after ignition, by the 
contact of dews or snows, and thus breaks into angular fragments, 
such as the streets of London are paved with, or have had their an- 
gles rounded by attrition, or by partial solution ; and have thus formed 
the common paving stones, or bowlers, as well as the gravel, which 
is often rolled into strata amid the siliceous sand-beds, which are 
either formed or collected in the sea. 

In what manner such a mass of crystallized matter as the Giant's 
Causeway, and similar columns of basaltes, could have been raised, 
without other volcanic appearances, may be a matter not easy to 
comprehend; but there is another power in nature besides that of 
expansile vapour, which may have raised some materials which have 
previously been in igneous or aqueous solution ; and that is the act of 
congelation. When the water, in the experiments above related of 
Major Williams, had, by congelation, thrown out the plugs from the 
bomb-shells, a column of ice rose from the hole of the bomb six or 

Part I. 2D 



BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

eight inches high. Other bodies, I suspect, increase in bulk, which 
crystallize in cooling, as iron and type-metal. I remember pouring 
eight or ten pounds of melted brimstone into a pot to cool, and was 
surprized to see, after a little time, a part of the fluid beneath break 
a hole in the congealed crust above it, and gradually rise into a pro- 
montory several inches high. The basaltes has many marks of fusion 
and of crystallization, and may thence, as well as many other kinds of 
rock, as of spar, marble, petrosilex, jasper, Sec. have been raised 
by the power of congelation ; a power whose quantity has not yet been 
ascertained, and, perhaps, greater and more universal than that of 
vapours expanded by heat. These basaltic columns rise sometimes 
out of mountains of granite itself, as mentioned by Dr. Beddoes, 
(Phil. Trans, vol. lxxx.) and as they seem to consist of similar 
materials, more completely fused, there is still greater reason to 
believe them to have been elevated in the cooling or crystallization of 
the mass. See note XXIV. 



NOTE XX— CLAY. 

Hence ductile Clays in wide ex/iansion s/iread, 
Soft as the Cygnet's down, their sJiow-white bed. 

C ax to II. 1. 27T. 

THE philosophers who have attended to the formation of the 
earth, have acknowledged two great agents in producing the various- 
changes which the terraqueous globe has undergone, and these are 
water and fire. Some of them have, perhaps, ascribed too much to 
one of these great agents of nature, and some to the other. They 
have generally agreed, that the stratification of materials could only 
be produced from sediments or precipitations, which were previously- 
mixed or dissolved in the sea ; and that whatever effects were pro- 
duced by fire, Avere performed afterwards. 

There is, however, great difficulty in accounting for the universal 
stratification of the solid globe of the earth in this manner, since 
many of the materials which appear in strata could not have been 
suspended in water ; as the nodules of flint in chalk-beds, the cx- 
tensive beds of shells; and, lastly, the strata of coal, clay, sand, 
and iron-ore, which, in most coal countries, lie from five to seven 
times alternately stratified over each other, and none of them are 
soluble in water. Add to this, if a solution of them, or a mixture of 
them in water, Could be supposed, the cause of that solution must 
cease before a precipitation could commence. 



Note 20. CLAY. 193 

1. The great masses of lava, under the various names of granite, 
porphyry, toad-stone, moor-stone, rag, and slate, which constitute the 
old world, may have acquired the old stratification, which some of 
them appear to possess, by their having been formed by successive 
eruptions of a fluid mass, which, at different periods of ancient time, 
arose from volcanic shafts, and covered each other: the surface of the 
interior mass of lava would cool, and become solid, before the super- 
incumbent stratum was poured over it: to the same cause maybe 
ascribed their different compositions and textures, which are scarcely 
the same in any two parts of the world. 

2. The stratifications of the great masses of lime-stone, which 
were produced from sea-shells, seem to have been formed by the dif- 
ferent times at which the innumerable shells were produced and depo- 
sited. A colony -of echini, or madrepores, or cornua ammonis, lived 
and perished in one period of time ; in another, a new colony of 
either similar or different shells lived and died over the former ones, 
producing a stratum of more recent shells over a stratum of others 
which had begun to petrify, or to become marble ; and thus, from 
unknown depths to what are now the summits of mountains, the lime- 
stone is disposed in strata of varying solidity and colour. These have 
afterwards undergone variety of changes by their solution and deposi- 
tion from the water in which they were immersed, or from having 
been exposed to great heat under great pressure, according to the in- 
genious theory of Dr. Hutton. Edinb. Transact, vol. i. See note 
XVI. 

3. In most of the coal countries of this island, there are from five 
to seven beds of coal stratified, with an equal number of beds, though 
of much greater thickness, of clay and sand-stone, and occasionally 
of iron-ores. In what manner to account for the stratification of 
these materials seems to be a problem of great difficulty. Philoso- 
phers have generally supposed that they have been arranged by the 
currents of the sea ; but considering their insolubility in water, and 
their almost similar specific gravity, an accumulation of them in such 
distinct beds from this cause is altogether inconceivable, though some 
coal countries bear marks of having been, at some time, immersed 
beneath the waves, and raised again by subterranean fires. 

The higher and lower parts of morasses were necessarily produced 
at different periods of time, (see note XVII.) and would thus origi- 
nally be formed in strata of different ages. For when an old wood 
perished, and produced a morass, many centuries would elapse be- 
fore another wood could grow, and perish again, upon the same 
ground, which would thus produce a new stratum of morass over the 
other; differing, indeed, principally in its age, and, perhaps, as the 
timber might be different, in the proportions of its component parts. 



194 BOTANIC GARDEN. Paht I. 

Now, if wo suppose the lowermost stratum of a morass become ig- 
nited, like fermenting hay (after whatever could be carried away by 
solution in water was gone), what would happen? Certainly the 
inflammable part, the oil, sulphur, or bitumen, would burn ;v 
be evaporated in air ; and the fixed parts would be left, as clay, 
lime, and iron ; while some of the calcareous earth would join with 
the siliceous acid, and produce sand ; or with the argillaceous earth, 
and produce marl. Thence, after many centuries, another bedrwould 
take fire, but with less degree of ignition, and with a greater body of 
morass over it : what then would happen ? The bitumen and sulphur 
■would rise, and might become condemed under an impervious stra- 
tum, which might not be ignited, and there form coal of different 
purities, according to its degree of fluidity, which would permit some 
of the clay to subside through it into the place from which it was 
sublimed. 

Some centuries afterwards another similar process might take 
place, and either thicken the coal-bed, or produce a new clay-bed, 
or marl, or sand, or deposit iron upon it, according to the concomi- 
tant circumstances above-mentioned. 

I do not mean to contend, that a few masses of some materials may 
not have been rolled together by currents, when the mountains were 
much more elevated than at present, and, in consequence, the rivers 
broader and more rapid, and the storms of rain and wind greater both 
in quantity and force. Some gravel-beds may have been thus washed 
from the mountains; and some white clay washed from morasses into 
valleys beneath them ; and some ochres of iron dissolved and again 
deposited by water ; and some calcareous depositions from water (as 
the bank, for instance, on which stand the houses at Matlock-bath) ; 
but these are all of small extent or consequence compared to the pri- 
mitive rocks of granite or porphyry which form the nucleus of the 
earth, or to the immense strata of lime-stone which crust over the 
greatest part of this granite or porphyry ; or, lastly, to the Aery ex- 
tensive beds of clay, marl, sand-stone, coal, and iron, which were 
probably for many millions of years the only parts of our continent? 
and islands, which were then elevated above the level of the sea, and 
which, on that account, became covered with vegetation, and thence 
acquired their later or superincumbent strata, which constitute what 
some have termed the new world. 

There is another source of clay, and that of the finest kind, from 
decomposed granite; this is of a snowy white, anil mixed with shin- 
Ing particles of mica ; of this kind is an earth from tin- country oi 
the Chen kees. Other kinds are from less ] me lava! : Mr. Ferbei 
asserts that the sulphureous steams from Mount Vesuvius convert the 
lava into clay. 



Note 21. ENAMELS. 195 

" The lavas of the ancient Solfatara volcano have been undoubtedly 
of a vitreous nature, and these appear at present argillaceous. Some 
fragments of this lava are but half, or at one side changed into clay, 
which either is viscid or ductile, or hard and stony. Clays, by fire, 
are deprived of their coherent quality, which cannot be restored to 
them by pulverization, nor by humectation. But the sulphureous Sol- 
fatara steams restore it, as may be easily observed on the broken pots 
wherein they gather the sal ammoniac; though very well baked and 
burnt at Naples, they are mollified again by the acid steams into a 
vi-cid clay, which keeps the former fire-burnt colour." Travels in 
Italy, p. 156. 



NOTE XXI ENAMELS. 

Smeared her huge dragons with metallic hues, 
With golden purples, and cobaltic blues. 

Canto II. 1. 287. 

THE fine bright purples or rose colours which we see on china 
cups, are not producible with any other material except gold; man- 
ganese indeed gives a purple, but of a very different kind. 

In Europe, the application of gold to these purposes appears to be 
of modern invention. Cassius's discovery of the precipitate of gold 
by tin, and the use of that precipitate for colouring glass and enamels, 
are now generally known ; but though the precipitate with tin be 
more successful in producing the ruby glass, or the colourless glass, 
which becomes red by subsequent ignition, the tin probably contributing 
to prevent the gold from separating (which it is very liable to do dur- 
ing the fusion) ; yet, for enamels, the precipitates made by alkaline 
salts answer equally well, and give a finer red; the colour produced 
by the tin precipitate being a bluish purple, but with the others a rose 
red. I am informed that some of our best artists prefer aurum ful- 
ininans, mixing it, before it has become dry, with the white composi- 
tion, or enamel flux; when once it is divided by the other matter, it 
is ground with great safety, and without the least danger of explosion, 
whether moist or dry. The colour is remarkably improved and 
brought forth by long grinding, which accordingly makes an essentia! 
circumstance in the process. 

The precipitates of gold, and the colcothar, or other red prepara- 
tions of iron, are called tender colours. The heat must be no greater 
than is just sufficient to make the enamel run upon the piece, for if 
greater, the colours will be destroyed or changed to a different kind. 



198 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

When the vitreous matter has just become fluid, it seems as if the 
coloured metallic calx remained barely intermixed with it, like a co- 
loured powder of exquisite tenuity suspended in w iter ; but by stron- 
ger fire the calx is dissolved, and metallic colours are altered by solu- 
tion in glass, as well as in acids or alkalies. 

The Saxon mines have, till very lately, almost exclusively supplied 
the rest of Europe with cobalt, or rather wiih its preparations, z tf- 
fre and smalt; for the exportation of the ore itself is there a capital 
crime. Hungary, Spain, Sweden, and some other parts of the con- 
tinent, are now said to afford cobalts equal to the Saxon, and speci- 
mens have been discovered in our own island, both in Cornwall and 
in Scotland, but hitherto in no great quantity. 

Calces of cobalt and of copper differ very materially from those 
above mentioned in their application for colouring enamels. In those 
the calx has previously acquired the intended colour, a colour which 
bears a red heat without injury; and all that remains is to fix it on the 
piece by a vitreous flux. But the blue colour of cobalt, and the green 
or bluish green of copper, are produced by vitrification, that is, by 
solution in the glass, and a strong fire is necessary for their perfection. 
These calces, therefore, when mixed with the enamel flux, are melted 
in crucibles, once or oftcner, and the deep coloured opake g'ass, 
thence resulting, is ground into impalpable powder, and used for ena- 
mel. One part of either of these calces is put to ten, sixteen, or 
twenty parts of the flux, according to the depth of colour required. 
The heat of the enamel-kiln is only a full red, such as is marked on 
Mr. Wedgwood's thermometer 6 degrees. It is therefore necessary 
that the flux be so adjusted as to melt in that low heat. The usual 
materials are flint, or flint-glass, with a due proportion of red-led, or 
borax, or both, and sometimes a little tin calx to give opacity. 

Ka-o-lin is the name given by the Chinese to their porcelain clay, 
and lie-tun-tse to the other ingredient in their China ware. Specimen:, 
of both these have been brought into England, and found to agree in 
quality Mich some of our own materials. Kaolin is the very same 
With the clay called in Cornwall and the petuntse is a granite 

similar to the Cornish moor-stone. There arc differences, both in the 
Chinese petuntses and the English moor-stones ; all of them contain 
micaceous and quartzy particles, in greater or less quantity, along 
with feltspar, which last is the essential ingredient for the porcelain 
manufactory. The only injurious material commonly found in them 
is iron, which discolours the ware in proportion to its quantity, and 
which our moor-stones are. perhaps, more frequently tainted with 
than the Chinese. Very fine porcelain has been made from English 
s. bui the nature of the manufacture renders the process pr* 
and the profit hazardous; for the semi-vitrification, which 




« #,-« j'r//,nn/ Ytl<* £ 



Note 22. PORTLAND VASE. 197 

constitutes porcelain, is necessarilv r accompanied with a degree of soft- 
ness or semi-fusion, so that the vessels are liable to have their forms 
altered in the kiln, or to run together Avith any accidental augmenta- 
tions of the fire. 



NOTE XXII PORTLAND VASE. 

Or bid Mortalitxj rejoice and mourn 

O'er the fine forms on Portland's ?nystic urn. 

Canto II. 1. 319. 

THE celebrated funeral vase, long in possession of the Barberini 
family, and lately purchased by the Duke of Portland for a thousand 
guineas, is about ten inches high, and six in diameter in the broadest 
part. The figures are of most exquisite workmanship in bas relief, 
of white opake glass, raised on a ground of deep blue glass, which 
appears black, except when held against the light. Mr. Wedgwood 
is of opinion, from many circumstances, that the figures have been 
made by cutting away the external crust of white opake glass, in the 
manner the finest cameos have been produced, and that it must thence 
have been the labour of a great many years. Some antiquarians 
have placed the time of its production many centuries before the 
Christian sera, as sculpture was said to have been declining, in re- 
spect to its excellence, in the time of Alexander the Great. See an 
account of the Barberini, or Portland vase, by M. D'Hancarville, 
and by Mr. Wedgwood. 

Many opinions and conjectures have been published concerning the 
figures on this celebrated vase. Having carefully examined one of 
Mr. Wedgwood's beautiful copies of this wonderful production of art, 
I shall add one more conjecture to the number. 

Mr. Wedgwood has well observed, that it does not seem probable 
that the Portland vase was purposely made for the ashes of any par- 
ticular person deceased, because many years must have been neces- 
sary for its production. Hence it may be concluded, that the subject 
of its embellishments is not private history, but of a general nature. 
This subject appears to me to be well chosen, and the story to be finely 
told; and that it represents what in ancient times engaged the atten- 
tion of philosophers, poets, and heroes ; I mean a part of the Eleu- 
sinian mysteries- 

These mysteries were invented in Egypt, and afterwards transfer- 
red to Greece, and flourished more particularly at Athens, which was, 
at the same time, the seat of the fine arts. They consisted of scent- 



flOTANTC GARDEN. Part I. 

cal exhibitions, representing and inculcating the expectation of a fu- 
ture life after death, and, on this account, were encouraged by the 
g ove rnment, in so much that the Athenian laws punished a discovery 
of their secrets with death. Dr. Warburton has, with great learning 
and ingenuity, shown, that the descent of ."Eneas into hell, described 
in the sixth book of Virgil, is a poetical account of the representations 
of the future state in the Eleusinian m\ stories. Divine Legation, 
vol. i. p. 210. 

And though some writers have differed in opinion from Dr. War- 
burton on this subject, because Virgil has introduced some of his own 
heroes into the Elysian fields, as Deiphobus, Palinurus, and Dido, in 
the same manner as Homer had done before him ; yet it is agreed 
that the received notions about a future state were exhibited in these 
mysteries ; and as these poets described those received notions, they 
may be said, as far as these religious doctrines were concerned, to 
have described the mysteries. 

Now, as these were emblematic exhibitions, they must have been 
as well adapted to the purposes of sculpture as of poetry, which, in- 
deed, does not seem to have been uncommon, since one compartment 
of figures in the shield of /Eneas represented the regions of Tarta- 
rus. iEn. lib. x. The procession of torches, which, according to 
M. De St. Croix, was exhibited in these mysteries, is still to be seen 
in basso relievo, discovered by Spon and Wheeler. Memoires sur le 
Mysteres par De St. Croix, 1784. And it is very probable that the 
beautiful gem representing the marriage of Cupid and Psyche, as 
described by Apuleius, was originally descriptive of another part of 
the exhibitions in these mysteries, though afterwards it became a 
common subject of ancient art. See Divine Legat. vol. i. p. 323. 
What subject could have been imagined so sublime for the ornaments 
of a funeral urn, as the mortality of all things, and their resuscita- 
tion ? Where could the designer be supplied with emblems for this 
purpose before the Christian xra, but from the Eleusinian mysteries ? 

1. The exhibitions of the mysteries were of two kinds — those which 
the people were permitted to see, and those which were only shown 
to the initialed. Concerning the latter, Aristides calls them » the 
most shocking and most ravishing representations." And Stobxus 
asserts, that the initiation into the grand mysteries exactly resemble* 
death. Divine Legat; vol. i. p. 280, and p. 27 I. And Virgil, in his 

hades below, amongst other things of terri 
mentions death. /En. vi. This part of the e ms to be 

in one of the compartments v[' the Portland vase. 

Three figures of exquisite workmanship are placed by the sided 
a ruined col imn, whose capital is fallen off, and lies at their feet witk 
other disjointed stones - } they sit on loose piles of stone, beneath a tree, 



Mote 22. PORTLAND VASE. 1919 

Which has not the leaves of any evergreen of this climate, but may 
be supposed to be an elm, which Virgil places near the entrance of 
the iniernal regions, and adds, that a dream was believed to dwell 
under every leaf of it. JE,n. vi. 1. 281. In the midst of this group 
reclines a female figure in a dying attitude, in which extreme languor 
is beautifully represented ; in her hand is an inverted torch, an an- 
cient emblem of extinguished life ; the elbow of the same arm resting 
on a stone, supports her as she sinks, while the other hand is raised, 
and thrown over her drooping head, in some measure sustaining it, 
and gives, with great art, the idea of fainting lassitude. On the right 
of her sits a -.van, and on the left a woman, both supporting them- 
selves on their arms, as people are liable to do when they are think- 
ing intensely. They have their backs toward the dying figure, yet 
with their faces turned towards her, as if seriously contemplating 
her situation, but without stretching out their hands to assist her. 

This central figure, then, appears to me to be an hieroglyphic, or 
Eieusinian emblem of mortal life, that is, the lethum, or death, 
mentioned by Virgil amongst the terrible things exhibited at the be- 
ginning of the mysteries. The inverted torch shows the figure to be 
emblematic ; if it had been designed to represent a real person in the- 
act of dying, there had been no necessity for the expiring torch, as 
the dying figure alone would have been sufficiently intelligible ;~~ it 
would have been as absurd as to have put an inverted torch into the 
hand of a real person at the time of his expiring. Besides, if this 
figure had i*epresented a real dying person, would not the other 
figures, or one of them at least, have stretched out a' hand to support 
her, to have eased her fall among loose stones, or to have smoothed, 
her pillow? These circumstances evince that the figure is an em- 
blem, and, therefore, could not be a representation of the private 
kistory of any particular family or event. 

The man and woman on each side of the dying figure must be 
considered as emblems, both from their similarity of situation and 
dress to the middle figure, and their being grouped along with it. 
These, I think, are hieroglyphic or Eleusinian emblems of human- 
kind, with their backs toward the dying figure of mortal life, 
unwilling to associate with her, yet turning back their serious and 
attentive countenances, curious indeed to behold, yet sorry to contem- 
plate their latter end. These figures bring strongly to one's mind 
the Adam and Eve of sacred writ, whom some have supposed to 
have been allegorical or hieroglyphic persons of Egyptian origin, 
but of more ancient date ; amongst Avhom, I think, is Dr. Warburton» 
According to this opinion, Adam and Eve were the names of two 
hieroglyphic figures, representing the early state of mankind; Abe!. 
Vas the name of an hieroglyphic figure, iv;pi*eseiiting the ae:e ©i" nas'. 
.... T 



j09 BOTANIC GARDEN. 

turage ; and Cain, the mime of another hieroglyphic symbol, repre- 
senting the age of agriculture ; at which time the uses of iron were 
discovered. And as the people who cultivated the earth, and built 
would increase in numbers much faster by their greater pro- 
duction of food, they would readily conquer or desiroy the people 
who -ere sustained by pasturage, which was typified by Cum slating 
Abel. 

2. On the other compartment of this celebrated vase is exhibited 
an emblem of immortality, the representation of which 
known to constitute a very principal part of the shows at the Eleusi- 
nian mvsteries, as Dr. Wurburton has proved by variety of authority. 
The habitation of spirits or ghosts, after death, was supposed by the 
ancients to be placed beneath the earth, where Pluto reigned, and 
dispensed rewards or punishments. Hence the first figure in this 
group is of the MANES, or ghost, who, h iving passed through an 
open portal, is descending into a dusky region, pointing his toe with 
timid and unsteady step, feeling, as it were, his way in the gloom. 
This portal JBneas enters, which is described by Virgi 1 ,— patet atri 
janua Ditis, -En. vi. I. 126 j as well as the easy de-cent. — taci.is 
descensus Averni. lb. The darkness at the entrance to the shades is 
humorously described by Lucian. Divine Legat. vol. i. p. 241. And 
the horror of the gates of hell was, in fhe time of Homer, become 
a pmverb. Achilles says to Ulysses, " I hate a liar worse than the 
gates of hell." The same expression is used in Isaiah, chap, xxxviii. 
ver. 10. The manes, or ghost, appears lingering and fearful, and 
wishes to drag after him a part of his mortal garment, which, how- 
ever, adheres to the side of the portal through which he has passed. 
The beauty of this allegory would have been expressed by Mr. Pepe, 
by " We feel the ruling passion strong in death." 

A little lower down in the group, the manes, or ghost, is received 
by a beautiful female, a symbol of immortal life. This is evinced 
by her fondling between her knees a large and playful serpent, which, 
from its annually renewing its external skin, has, from great anti- 
quity, even as earlj as the fable of Prometheus, been esteemed an 
emblem of renovated youth. The story of the serpent acquiring 
immortal life from the ass of Prometheus, who carried it on b 
is told in Bacon's Works, vol. v. p. 462. quarto edit. Lond. 177 . 
I nilar purpose a serpent was wrapped round the lav 

pie of Dioscuri, as an emblem of the i 
F death. Bryant's Mythology, vol. ii, 
t. ():. this account also the serpent was . 

i the name of the hieroglyphic 
. This serpent shows this figure to be an 
as 3 the torch showed the central figure of the other compartment to 



Note 22. PORTLAND VASE. 20i 

be. an emblem : hence they agreeably correspond, and explain each 
other; one representing mortal life, and the other immortal 

LIFE. 

This emblematic figure of Immortal Life sits down with her feet 
towards the figure of Pluto ; but turning back her face towards the 
timid ghost, she stretches forth her hnnd, and, taking hold of his 
elbow, supports his tottering steps, as well as encourages him to 
advance: both which circumstances are thus, with wonderful inge» 
nuity, brought to the eye. At the same time the spirit loosely lays 
his hand upon her arm, as one walking in the dark would naturally 
do for the greater certainty of following his conductress; while the 
general part of the symbol of immortal life, being turned toward 
the figure of Pluto, shows that she is leading the phantom to his 
realms. 

In the Pamphili gardens at Rome, Perseus, in assisting Andromeda 
to descend from the rock, takes hold of her elbow to steady or sup- 
port her step, and she lays her hand loosely on his arm, as in this 
figure. Admir. Roman Antiq. 

The figure of Pluto can not be mistaken, as is agreed by mos6 
of the writers who have mentioned this vase ; his grisly beard, and 
his having one foot buried in the earth, denote the infernal monarch* 
He is placed at the lowest part of the group, and, resting his chin on 
his hand, and his arm upon his knee, receives the stranger-spirit 
"with inquisitive attention. It was before observed, that when people 
think attentively, they naturally rest their bodies in some easy atti- 
tude, that more animal power may be employed on the thinking fa- 
culty. In this group of figures there is great art shown in giving an 
idea of a descending plain, viz. from earth to Elysium, and yet all 
the figures arc, in reality, on a horizontal one. This wonderful 
deception is produced, first, by the descending step of the manes, 
or ghost ; secondly, by the arm of the sitting figure of Immortal Life 
being raised up to receive him as he descends ; and, lastly, by Pluto 
having one foot sunk into the earth. 

There is yet another figure which is concerned in conducting the, 
manes, or ghost, to the realms of Pluto, and this is Love. He pre- 
cedes the descending spirit on expanded wings, lights him with his 
torch, and turning back his beautiful countenance, beckons him to 
advance. The ancient God of Love was of much higher dignity than 
the modern Cupid. He was the first that came out of the great egg 
of night, (Hesiod. Theog. V. CXX. Bryant's Mythol. vol. ii. p. 
348.) and is said to possess the keys of the sky, sea, and earth. As 
he, therefore, led the way into this life, he seems to constitute a pro- 
per emblem for leading the way to a future life, See Bacon''? Works ; 
vol. i. p. S68. and vol. iii. p. 532. qu; I 



Sp2 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

The introduction of Love into this part of the mvsteries requires a 
little further explanation. The Psyche of the Egyptians was one 
of their most favourite emblems, and represented the soul, or a 
future life ; it was originally no other than the aurelia, or butterfly, 
but in after times was represented by a lovely female child, with the 
beautiful wings of that insect. The aurelia, after its first stage as an 
eruca or caterpillar, lies for a season in a manner dead, and is en- 
closed in a sort of coffin : in this state of darkness it remains all the: 
winter; but, at the return of spring, it bursts its bonds and comes 
out with new life, and in the most beautiful attire. The Egyptians 
thought this a very proper picture of the soul of man, and of the 
immortality to which it aspired. But as this was all owing to divine 
Love, of which Eros was an emblem, we find this person frequently 
introduced as a concomitant of the soul in general, or Psyche. (Bry 
ant's Mythol. vol. ii. p. 386.) Eros, or divine Love, is for the 
same reason a proper attendant on the manes or soul after death, and 
much contributes to tell the story, that is, to show that a soul or 
manes is designed by the descending figure. From this figui e of Love, 
M. D'Hancarville imagines that Orpheus and Eurydice are typified 
under the figure of the manes, and immortal life as above described- 
It may be sufficient to answer, first, that Orpheus is always repre- 
sented with a lyre, of which there are prints of four different gems 
In Spence's Polymctis, and Virgil so describes him, /En. vi. cythara 
fretus. And, secondly, that it is absurd to suppose that Eurydice was 
fondling and playing with a serpent that had slain her. Add to this, 
that Love seems to have been an inhabitant of the infernal region*,, 
as exhibited in the mysteries ; for Claudian, who treats more openly 
of the Eleusinian mysteries, Avhen they were held in less veneration, 
invokes the deities to disclose to him their secrets, and amongst othe? 
tilings, by what torch Love softens Pluto. 
jD//, cjuibus in xumerum, lD"c. 
Vqs mihi sacrarum fienetratia fiandite ren 
Et vestri secreta/ioli, qua lam[iade Ditem 
Flexit Amor, 
In this compartment there are two trees, whose branches spread 
•over the figures ; one of them has smoother leaves, like souk- evei 
greens, and might thence be supposed to have some allusion to im- 
mortality, but they may perhaps have been designed onl) 
ments, or to relieve the figures, or because it was in groves where. 
these mysteries were oi'iginally celebrated. Thus Homer speaks oj 
the woods of Proserpine, and mentions many trees in Tartarus, a.: 
presenting their fruits to Tantalus ; Virgil speaks of the | 
groves of Elysium; and in Spence's Polymetis there are prints oi"tw>- 
ancient gems, one of Orpheus charming Cerberus with his I 



:Vote *2« PORTLAND VASE. 

the other of Hercules binding him in a cord ; each of them standing 
by a tree. Polymet. p. 284. As, however, these trees have all dif- 
ferent foliage so clearly marked by the artist, they may have had 
specific meanings in the exhibitions of the mysteries, which have not 
reached posterity: of this kind seem to have been the tree of know- 
ledge of good and evil, and the tree of life, in sacred writ, both 
which must have been emblematic or allegorical. The masks, hang- 
ing to the handles of the vase, seem to indicate that there is a con- 
cealed meaning in the figures besides their general appearance. And 
the priestess at the bottom, which I come now to describe, seems to 
show this concealed meaning to be of the sacred or Eleusinian kind. 

3. The figure on the bottom of the vase is on a larger scale than 
the others, and less finely finished, and less elevated ; and, as this 
bottom part was afterwards cemented to the upper part, it might be 
executed by another artist, for the sake of expedition ; but there 
seems no reason to suppose that it was not originally designed for the 
upper part of it, as some have conjectured. As the mysteries of 
Ceres were celebrated by female priests, for Porphyrius says the an- 
cients called the priestesses of Ceres, Melissai, or bees, which were 
emblems of chastity, Div. Leg. vol. i. p. 235. and as, in his Satire 
against the sex, Juvenal says, that few women are worthy to be 
priestesses of Ceres, Sat. vi. the figure at the bottom of the vase 
would seem to represent a priestess, or hieeophant, whose 
office it was to introduce the initiated, and point out to them, and ex- 
plain the exhibitions in the mysteries, and to exclude the uninitiated, 
calling out to them, " Far, far retire, ye profane !" and to guard the 
secrets of the temple. Thus the introductory hymn sung by the hie- 
rophant, according to Eusebius, begins, " I will declare a secret to 
the initiated, but let the doors be shut against the profane." Div. 
Leg. vol. i. p. 177. The priestess, or hierophant, appears in this figure 
with a close hood, and dressed in linen, which sits close about her ; 
except a light cloak, which flutters in the wind. Wool, as takea 
from slaughtered animals, was esteemed profane by the priests of 
Egypt, who were always dressed in linen. Apuleius, p. 64. Div. 
Leg. vol. i. p. 313. Thus Eli made for Samuel a linen ephod, 
Samuel i. 3. 

Secrecy was the foundation on which all mysteries rested ; whea 
publicly known, they ceased to be mysteries : hence a discovery of 
them was not only punished with death by the Athenian law, but in 
other countries a disgrace attended the breach of a solemn oath. The 
priestess, in the figure before us, has her finger pointing to her lips, 
as an emblem of silence. There is a figure of Harpocrates, who was 
of Egyptian origin, the same as Orus, with the lotus on his head, and 
$Uth. his finger pointing to his lips, not pressed upon them, in Bryant's 



BOTANIC GARDEN. 1»abtI. 

and anotlier female figure standing on a lotus, 
as if just risen from tlie Nile, with tier finger in the same attitude; 
in to have been representations or emblems of male and fe- 
male priests of the secret mysteries. A> these sorts of emblems 
were frequently changed by artists for their more elegant exhibition, 
')le the foliage over the head of this figure may bear some 
to the lotus above-mentioned. 
This figure of secrecy seems to be here placed, with great ingenui- 
ty, as a caution to the initialed, who might understand the meaning 
of the emblems round the vase, not to divulge it. And this circum- 
stance seems to account for there being no written explanation extant, 
and no tradition concerning these beautiful figures handed down to us 
along with them. 

Another explanation of this figure, at the bottom of the vase, would 
seem to confirm the idea that the basso relievos round its sides are 
representations of a part of the mysteries ; I mean that it is the head 
of Atis. Lucian says that Atis was a >oung man of Phrygia, of 
uncommon beauty; that he dedicated a temple in Syria to Rhea, or 
Cybele, and first taught her mysteries to the Lydians, Phrygians, and 
Samothracians, which mysteries he brought from India. He was 
afterwards made an eunuch by Rhea, and lived like a woman, and 
assumed a feminine habit, and in that garb went over the world, 
teaching her ceremonies and mysteries. Diet, par M. Danet, art. 
Atis. As this figure is covered with clothes, while those on the sides 
of the vase are naked, and has a Phrygian cap on the head, and as 
the form and features are so soft, that it is difficult to say whether it 
be a male or female figure, there is reason to conclude, 1. That it has 
reference to some particular person of seme particular country ; 2. 
That this person is Atis, the first great hierophant, or teacher of 
mysteries, to whom M. De la Chausse says the figure itself bears a 
resemblance. Museo. Capitol, torn. iv. p. 402. 

In the Museum Etruscum, vol. i. plate 96. there is the head of 

A.tis with feminine features, clothed with a Phrygian cap, and rising 

from very broad foliage, placed on a kind of term, supported by the 

lion. Goreus, in his explanation of the figure, says, that 

■ .1 on a lion's foot because that animal v. as sacred to Cybele, 

rises from very broad leaves, because after he became an 

eunuch, he determined to dwell in the groves. Thus 

well as th is figurj 

at the bottom of the vase representing the head of Atis, the first 

n1 ; and that the figures on the sides of the vase arc 

•' • ancient mysteries. 

, hat it does not appear to have been uncommon 
:al figures on funeral vases. '•: 



Note 23. COAL. 205 

the Pamphili palace at Rome, there is an elaborate representation of 
Life and Death, on an ancient sarcophagus. In the first Prometheus 
is represented miking man, and Minerva is placing a butterfly, or 
the soul, upon his head. In the other compartment, Love extin- 
guishes his torch in the bosom of the dying figure, and is receiving 
the butterfly, or Psyche, from him, with a great number of compli- 
cated emblematic figures grouped in very bad tase. Admir. Ro- 
man Antiq. 



NOTE XXIII.— COAL. 

Hi'nce sable Coal his massy couch extends. 
And stars of gold the sparkling Pyrite blends. 

Canto II. 1. 349. 

TO elucidate the formation of coal-beds, I shall here describe a 
fountain of fossil tar, or petroleum, discovered lately near Colebrook 
D de, in Shropshire, the particulars of which were sent me by Dr. 
Robert Darwin, of Shrewsbury. 

About a mile and a half below the celebrated iron-bridge, con- 
structed by the late Mr. Darby, near Colebrook Dale, on the east 
side of the river Severn, as the workmen, in October, 1786, were 
making a subterranean canal into the mountain, for the more easy 
acquisition and conveyance of the coals which lie under it, they found 
an oozing of liquid bitumen, or petroleum; and as they proceeded 
further, cut through small cavities of different sizes, from which the 
bitumen issued. From ten to fifteen barrels of this fossil tar, each 
barrel containing thirty-two gallons, were at first collected in a day, 
which has since, however, gradually diminished in quantity, so that 
at present the product is about seven barrels in fourteen days. 

The mountain into which this canal enters, consists of siliceous sand, 
in which, however, a few marine productions, apparently in their 
recent state, have been found, and are now in the possession of Mr. 
William Reynolds, of Ketly Bank. About three hundred yards from 
the entrance into the mountain, and about twenty-eight yards below 
the surface of it, the 'tar is found oozing from the sand rock above, 
into the top and sides of the canal. 

Beneath the level of this canal, a shaft has been sunk through a 
grey argillaceous substance, called, in this country, clunch, which is 
said to be a pretty certain indication of coal : beneath this lies a stra- 
tum of coal, about two or three inches thick, of an inferior kind, 
yielding little flame in burning, and leaving much ashes ; below this 



BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

is a rock of a harder texture ; and beneath this arc found coals of an 
excellent quality; for the purpose of procuring which with greater 

facility, the canal, or horizontal aperture, is now making into the 
mountain. July, 1788. 

Beneath these coals in some places is found salt-water ; in other 
parts of the adjacent country there are beds of iron-stone, which 
also contain some bitumen in a less fluid state, and which are about 
on a level with the new canal, into which the fossil tar oozes, as 
above described. 

There are many interesting circumstances attending the situation 
and accompanyments of this fountain of fossil tar, tending to develope 
the manner of its pi-oduction. 1. As the canal passing into the moun- 
tain runs over the beds of coals, and under the reservoir of petro- 
leum, it appears that a natural distillation of this fossil, in the bowels 
of the earth, must have taken place at some early period of the world, 
similar to the artificial distillation of coal, which has many years been 
carried on in this place on a smaller scale above ground. When this 
reservoir of petroleum was cut into, the slowness of its exudation 
into the canal, was not only owing to its viscidity, but to the pressure 
of the atmosphere, or to the necessity there was that air should at the 
same time insinuate itself into the small cavities from which the pe- 
troleum descended. The existence of such a distillation at some an- 
cient time, is confirmed by the thin stratum of coal beneath the 
canal (which covers the hard rock), having been deprived of its fos- 
sil oil, so as to burn without flame, and thus to have become a natural 
c.oak, or fossil charcoal, while the petroleum distilled from it is found 
in the cavities of the rock above it. 

There are appearances in other places, which favour this idea of 
the natural distillation of petroleum : thus, at Matlock, in Derby- 
shire, a hard bitumen is found adhering to the spar in the clefts of the 
lime-rocks, in the form of round drops about the size of peas ; which 
could, perhaps, only be deposited there in that form by sublimation. 

2. The second deduction which offers itself is, that these beds of 
coal have been exposed to a considerable degree of heat., since the. 
petroleum above could not be separated, as far as we know, by an) 
other means, and that the good quality of the coals beneath the hard 
vock, was owing to the impermeability of this rock to the bituminous 
vapour, and to its pressure being too great to permit its being re 
moved by the elasticity of that vapour. Thus, from the degree of 
lieat, the degree of pressure, and the permeability of the superin- 
' rata, many of the phenomena attending coal-beds receive 
an easy explanation, which much accords with the ingenious theory 
of the earth by Dr. Hutton. Trans, of Edinb, vol. i. 

In some coal «vorks 3 the fusion dF < 11 is beer, so 



Note 23. COAL. 20? 

light, that there remains the appearance of ligneous fibres, and the 
impression of leaves, as at Bovey, near Exeter, and even seeds of 
vegetables, of which I have had specimens from the collieries near 
Polesworth, in Warwickshire. In some, where the heat was not very 
intense, and the incumbent stratum not permeable to vapour, the 
fossil oil has only risen to the upper part of the coal-bed, and has ren- 
dered that much more inflammable than the lower parts of it, as in 
the collieries near Beaudcsert, the seat of the Earl of Uxbridge, in 
Staffordshire, where the upper stratum is a perfect cannel, or candle- 
coal, and the lower one of an inferior quality. Over the coal-beds near 
Sir H. Harpur's house in Derbyshire, a thin lamina of asphaltum is 
found in some places near the surface of the earth, which would seem 
to be from a distillation of petroleum from the coals below, the more 
fluid part of which had, in process of time, exhaled, or been consoli- 
dated by its absorption of air. In other coal-works the upper part of 
the stratum is of a worse kind than the lower one, as at Alfreton and 
Denbigh, in Derbyshire, owing to the superincumbent stratum having 
permitted the exhalation of a great part of the petroleum ; whilst at 
Widdrington, in Northumberland, there is first a seam of coal about 
six inches thick, of no value, which lies under about four fathom of 
clay; beneath this is a white free-stone, then a hard stone, which the 
workmen there call a whin, then two fathoms of clay, then another 
white stone, and under that a vein of coals three feet nine inches thick, 
of a similar nature to the Newcastle coal. Phil. Trans. Abridg. 
vol. vi. plate 2. p. 192. The similitude between the circumstances 
of this colliery, and of the coal beneath the fountain of tar above de- 
scribed, renders it highly probable, that this upper thin seam of coal 
has suffered a similar distillation, and that the inflammable part of it 
had either been received into the clay above, in the form of sulphur, 
which, when burnt in the open air, would produce alum ; or had been 
dissipated, for want of a receiver, where it could be condensed. The 
former opinion is, perhaps, in this case, more probable, as in some 
other coal-beds, of which I have procured accounts, the surface of the 
coal beneath clunch or clay is of an inferior quality, as at West-Hal- 
lam, in Nottinghamshire. The clunch probably from hence acquires 
its inflammable part, which, on calcination, becomes vitriolic acid. 
I gathered pieces of clunch, converted partially into alum, at aWol- 
liery near Bilston, where the ground was still on fire a few years ago. 

The heat, which has thus pervaded the beds of morass, seems to 
have been the effect of the fermentation of their vegetable materials j 
as new hay sometimes takes fire, even in such very small masses, 
from the sugar it contains, and seems, hence, not to have been at- 
tended with any expulsion of lava, like the deeper craters of volcano's 
situated in beds of granite. 

Part I. 2F 



■l 



206 BOTANIC GARDEN. Pai t i. 

3. Tfte marine shells found in the loose sand-rock, above this reser- 
voir of petroleum, and the coal-beds beneath it, together with the ex- 
istence of sea-salt beneath these coals, prove that these coal-beds have 
been at the bottom of the sea, during some remote period of time, 
and were afterwards raised into their present situation by subter- 
pansions of vapour. This doctrine is further supported by 
the murks of violence, which some coal-beds received at the time 
they were raised out of the sea, as in the collieries at Mendip, in So- 
mersetshire. In these there are seven strata of coals, equitant upon 
each other, with beds of clay and stone intervening; amongst which clay 
are found shells and fern branches. In one part of this hill the strata 
are disjoined, and a quantity of heterogeneous substances fill up the 
ehasm which disjoins them ; on one side of this chasm the seven strata 
of coal are seen corresponding, in respect to their reciprocal thick- 
ness and goodness, with the seven strata on the other side of the ca- 
vity, except that they have been elevated several yards higher. Phil. 
Trans. No. 360. Abridg. vol. v. p. 237. 

The cracks in the coal-bed near Ticknall, in Derbyshire, and in 
the sand-stone rock over it, in both of which specimens of lead-ore 
and spar are found, confirm this opinion of their having been forcibly 
raised up by subterraneous fires. Over the colliery at Brown-hills, 
near Lichfield, there is a stratum of gravel on the surface of the 
ground, which may be adduced as another proof to show that those 
coals had some time been beneath the sea, or the bed of a river. Ne- 
vertheless, these arguments only apply to the collieries above-men- 
tioned, which are few compared with those which bear no marks of 
having been immersed in the sea. 

On the other hand, the production of coals from morasses, as de- 
scribed in note XX. is evinced from the vegetable matters frequently 
found in them, and in the strata over them ; as fern-leaves in nodules 
of iron-ore, and from the bcg-shells, or fresh-water muscles, some- 
limes found over them, of both which I have what I believe to be spe- 
cimens ; and is further proved, from some parts of these beds being 
only in part transformed to coal ; and the other part still retaining 
not only the form, but some of the properties of wood ; specimens of 
which are not unfrequent in the cabinets of the curious, procured from 
Loch Neigh, in Ireland, from Bovcy, near Exeter, and other places; 
and from a famous cavern called the Temple of the Devil, near the 
town of Altorf, in Franconia, at the foot of a mountain covered with 
pine and savine, in which are found large coals resembling trees of 
ebony ; which are so far mineralized as to be heavy and compact ; 
and so to effloresce with pyrites in some parts as to crumble to pieces; 
yet from other parts white ashes are produced on calcination, from 
r;hk\\ fixed alkali is procured ; which evinces their vegetable origin,. 



Note 23. COAL. 209 

(Diet. Raisonne, art. Chavbon.) To these may be added another ar- 
gument, from the oil which is distilled from coals, and which is ana- 
logous to vegetable oil, and does not exist in any bodies truly mineral. 
Keir's Chemical Dictionary, art. Bitumen. 

Whence it would appear, that though most collieries, with their 
attendant strata of clay, sand-stone, and iron, were formed on the 
places where the vegetables grew from which they had their origin ; 
yet that other collections of vegetable matter were washed down from 
^eminences, by currents of water, into the beds of rivers, or the 
neighbouring seas, and were there accumulated at different periods of 
time, and underwent a great degree of heat, from their fermentation, 
IB the same manner as those beds of morass which had continued on 
the plains where they were produced : and that, by this fermenta- 
tion, many of them had been raised from the ocean, with sand and 
sea-shells over them ; and others from the beds of rivers, with accu- 
mulations of gravel upon them. 

4. For the purpose of bringing this history of the products of mo- 
lasses more distinctly to the eye of the reader, I shall here subjoin 
two or three accounts of sinking or boring for coals, out of above 
twenty, which I have procured from various places, though the terms 
are not very intelligible, being the language of the overseers of 
coal-works. 

1. Whitfield mine, near the Pottery, in Staffordshire. Soil 1 foot, 
brick-clay 3 feet, shale 4, metal which is hard brown, and falls in 
the weather, 42, coal 3, warrant clay 6, brown grit-stone 36, coal 3f, 
warrant clay 3§, bass and metal 53 1, hard-stone 4, shaly bass \\, 
coal 4, warrant clay depth unknown ; in all about 55 yards. 

2. Coal-mine at Alfreton, in Derbyshire. Soil and clay 7 feet, frag- 
ments of stone 9, bind 13, stone 6, bind 34, stone 5, bind 2, stone 2, 
bind 10, coal 1£, bind li, stone 37, bind 7, soft coal 3, bind 3, stone 

20, bind 16, coal 7\ ; in all about 61 yards. 

3. A basset coal-mine at Woolarton, in Nottinghamshire. Sand 
and gravel 6 feet, bind 21, stone 10, smut or effete coal 1, clunch 4, 
bind 21, stone 18, bind 18, stone-bind 15, soft coal 2, clunch and bind 

21, coal 7 ; in all about 48 yards. 

4. Coal-mine at West-Ha'lam, in Nottinghamshire. Soil and clav 
7 feet, bind 48, smut \\, clunch 4, bind 3, stone 2, bind 1, stone 1, 
bind 3, stone 1, bind 16, shale 2, bind 12, shale 3, chinch, stone, and. 
a bed of cank 54, soft coal 4, clay and dun 1, soft coal 4§, clunch 
and bind 21, coal 1, broad bind 26, hard coal 6 ; in all about 74 yai'ds. 

As these strata generally lie inclined, I suppose parallel with the 
lime-stone on which they rest, the upper edges of them all come out 
to day, which is termed bassetting ; when the whole mass was ignited 
kg its fermentation, it is probable that the inflammable part of some 



•JW BOTANIC GARDEN. Part T. 

6trata might thus more easily escape than of others, in the form of 
vapour, as dews are known to slide between such strata in the pro- 
duction of springs ; which accounts for some coal-beds being so much 
worse than others. See note XX. 

From this account of the production of coals from morasses, it 
would appear, that coal-beds are not to be expected beneath masses 
of lime-stone. Nevertheless, I have been lately informed by my 
friend, Mr. Michel, of Thornhill, who, I hope, will soon favour the 
public with his geological investigations, that the beds of chalk arc 
the uppermost of all the lime-stones ; and that they rest on the gra- 
nulated lime-stone called ketton-stone ; which, I suppose, is similar 
to that which covers the whole country from Leadenham to Sleaford, 
and from Sleaford to Lincoln ; and that, thirdly, coal-delphs are fre- 
quently found beneath these two uppermost beds of lime-stone. 

Now, as the beds of chalk and of granulated lime-stone may have 
been formed by alluviation, on or beneath the shores of the sea, or 
in vallies of the land, it would seem, that some coal-countries, which, 
in the great commotions of the earth, had been sunk beneath the 
water, were thus covered with alluvial lime-stone, as well as others 
with alluvial basaltes, or common gravel-beds. Very extensive plains, 
which now consist of alluvial materials, were, in the early times, co- 
vered with water, which has since diminished, as the solid parts of 
the earth have increased. For the solid parts of the earth, consisting 
chiefly of animal and vegetable recrements, must have originally been 
formed or produced from the water, by animal and vegetable pro- 
cesses ; and as the solid parts of the earth may be supposed to be 
thrice as heavy as water, it follows, that thrice the quantity of water 
must have vanished, compared with the quantity of earth thus pro- 
duced. This may account for many immense beds of alluvial ma- 
terials, as gravel, rounded sand, granulated lime-stone, and chalk, 
covering such extensive plains as Lincoln-heath, having become dry 
■without the supposition of their having been again elevated from the 
ocean. At the same time we acquire the knowledge of one of the 
uses or final causes of the organized world, not indeed very flattering 
to our vanity ; that it converts water into earth, forming islands and 
continents by its recrements or exuvix. 

The annexed section of a coal-mine was sent me by a member of 
the ingenious philosophical society of Newcastle upon Tync, and can- 
not but much gratify every inquirer into the strata of coal countries, 



to the 
LOW MAIS' COAL 




Metal Stone k GrrdU :> 



Darlc i hex Metal Stcne 

■Metal aneLWhin Ctrdtes . .... 

■Metal and Gu-cUU/s 

8 Test --"- 

ahl"Grey'HCU,V. '. '. ". ".".".'" '.'!'. '.'. '.'. 

Coal 

'. a,rvd Grey Metal 

White Post mixed with Whin-... 

Grey Metal I / 

GreYMetal and Gxrdltj ! i 

Lov Mam Coal- - \J_ 



to the 
LOW MAD? COAL 

at 

STAKTHON's COLLIERY. 



PH 



CM 



■ High TvOim Coal 





m 


— 


— 


— 1 


— 




= 






( 211 ) 



NOTE XXIV— GRANITE. 

Climb the rude steejis, the granite-cliffs surround. 

Canto II. 1. 523. 

THE lowest stratum of the earth which human labour has arrived 
to, is granite ; and of this, likewise, consist the highest mountains 
of the world. It is known under variety of names, according to 
some difference in its appearance or composition, but is now generally 
considered by philosophers as a species of lava : if it contains quartz, 
feltspat, and mica, in distinct crystals, it is called granite ; which is 
found, in Cornwall, in rocks ; and in loose stones in the gravel near 
Drayton, in Shropshire, in the road towai'ds Newcastle. If these 
parts of the composition be less distinct, or if only two of them be 
visible to the eye, it is termed porphyiy, trap, whin-stone, moor- 
stone, slate. And if it appears in a regular angular form, it is called 
basaltes. The affinity of these bodies has lately been further well 
established by Dr. Beddoes, in the Phil. Trans, vol. Ixxx. 

These are all esteemed to have been volcanic productions, that 
have undergone different degrees of heat. It is well known, that in 
Papin's digester water may be made red-hot by confinement, and will 
then dissolve many bodies which otherwise are little or not at all acted 
upon by it. From hence it may be conceived, that under immense 
pressure of superincumbent materials, and by great heat, these mas- 
ses of lava may have undergone a kind of aqueous solution, without 
any tendency to vitrifaction, and might thence have a power of crys- 
tallization ; whence all the varieties above-mentioned, from the dif- 
ferent proportion of the materials, or the different degrees of heat 
they may have undergone in this aqueous solution. And that the uni- 
formity of the mixture of the original earths, as of lime, argil, silex, 
magnesia, and barytes, which they contain, was owing to their boil- 
ing together a longer or shorter time before their elevation into moun- 
tains. See note XIX. art. 8. 

The seat of volcanos seems to be principally, if not entirely, in 
these strata of granite, as many of them are situated on granite 
mountains, and throw up, from time to time, sheets of lava, which 
run down over the preceding strata, from the same origin ; and in 
this they seem to differ from the heat which has separated the clay, 
coal, and sand, in morasses, which would appear to have risen from 
a kind of fermentation, and thus to have pervaded the whole mass, 
without any expuition of lava. 

All the lavas from Vesuvius contain one fourth part of iron, (Kir- 



BOTANIC GARDEN. Part L 

ivan's Min.) and all the five primitive earths, viz. calcareous, argil- 
laceous, siliceous, barytic, and magnesian earths; which . 
evidently produced now, daily, from the recrements of animal and 
vegetable bodies. What is to be thence concluded ? Has the granite 
stratum, in very ancient times, been produced like the present cal- 
careous and siliceous masses, according to the ingenious theory of Dr. 
Hutton, who says new continents are now forming at the bottom of 
the sea, to rise in their turn ; and that thus the terraqueous globe 
has been, and will be, eternal ? Or shall we suppose, that this inter- 
nal heated mass of gmnite, which forms the nucleus of the earth, was 
a part of the body of the sun, before it was separated by an explo- 
sion ? Or was the sun originally a planet, inhabited like ours, and a 
satellite to some other greater sun, which has long been extinguished 
by diffusion of its light, and around which the present sun continues 
to revolve, according to a conjecture of the celebrated Mr. Herschell, 
and which conveys to the mind a most sublime idea of the progressive 
and increasing excellence of the works of the Creator of all thing*- ? 
For the more easy comprehension of the facts and conjectures con- 
fcerning the situation and production of the various strata of the earth, 
I shall here subjoin a supposed section of the globe, but without any 
attempt to give the proportions of the parts, or the number of them, 
but only their respective situations over each other, and a geological 
recapitulation. 

GEOLOGICAL RECAPITULATION. 

1. The earth was projected along with the other primary planets 
from the sun, which is supposed to be on fire only on its surface, 
emitting light without much internal heat, like a ball of burning 
camphor. 

2. The rotation of the earth round its axis was occasioned by it.- 
greater friction, or adhesion to one side of the cavity from which it 
was ejected ; and from this rotation it acquired its spheroidical form. 
As it cooled in its ascent from the sun, its nucleus became harder; 
and its attendant vapours were condensed, forming the ocean. 

3. The masses or mountains of granite, porphyry, basalt, and 
Stones of similar structure, were a part of the original nucleus of the 
earth, or consist of volcanic productions since formed. 

4. On this nucleus of granite and basaltes, thus covered by the 
ocean, were formed the calcareous beds of lime-stone, marble, chalk, 
spar, from the exuvia; of marine animals, with the Hints, or chert:', 
which accompany them : and were stratified by their having beer. 
formed at dim rent and very distant periods of time. 

5. The whole terraqueous globe was burst by central fire"; 



Note 24. GRANITE. 218 

and continents were raised, consisting of granite, or lava, in some 
parts, and of lime-stone in others ; and great vallies were sunk, into 
which the ocean retired. 

6. During these central earthquakes the moon was ejected from the 
earth, causing new tides ; and the earth's axis suffered some change 
in its inclination, and its rotatory motion was retarded. 

7. On some parts of these islands and continents of granite or lime- 
stone, were gradually produced extensive morasses, from the recre- 
ments of vegetables and of land animals ; and from these morasses, 
heated by fermentation, were produced clay, marl, sand-stone, coal* 
iron (with the bases of variety of acids) ; all which were stratified by 
their having been formed at different and very distant periods of time. 

3. In the elevation of the mountains, very numerous and deep fis- 
sures necessarily were produced. In these fissures many of the me- 
tals are formed, partly from descending materials, and partly from as- 
cending ones, raised in vapour by subterraneous fires. In the fissure 
of granite or porphyry, quartz is formed ; in the fissures of lime- 
stone, calcareous spar is produced. 

9. During these first great volcanic fires, it is probable the atmos- 
phere was either produced, or much increased ; a process which is, 
perhaps, now going on in the moon ; Mr. Herschell having disco- 
vered a volcanic crater three miles broad, burning on her disk. 

10. The summits of the new mountains were cracked into innumer- 
able lozenges by the cold dews, or snows, falling upon them when 
red-hot. From the summits, which were then twice as high as at pre- 
sent, cubes and lozenges of granite and basalt, and quartz, in some 
countries, and of marble and flints in others, descended gradually 
into the valleys, and were rolled together in the beds of rivers (which 
were then so large as to occupy the whole valleys, which they now 
only intersect) ; and produced the great beds of gravel, of which 
many valleys consist. 

11. In several pai-ts of the earth's surface, subsequent earthquakes, 
from the fermentation of morasses, have, at different periods of time, 
deranged the position of the matters above described. Hence the 
gravel, which was before in the beds of rivers, has, in some places, 
been raised into mountains, along with clay and coal strata, which 
were formed from morasses, and washed down from eminences into 
the beds of rivers, or the neighbouring seas, and in part raised again 
with gravel, or marine shells, over them ; but this has only obtained 
in few places, compared with the general distribution of such mate- 
rials. Hence there seem to have existed two sources of earthquakes, 
which have occurred at great distance of time from each other ; one 
from the granite beds, in the central parts of the earth, and the other 
&ora the morasses on its surface. All the subsequent earthquakes and 



214 BOTANIC GARDEN". Taut I. 

volcano?; of modem days, compared with these, arc of small exteir 
and insignificant effect. 

12. Besides the argillaceous sand-stone produced from morasses, 
which is stratified with clay, and coal, and iron, other great beds of 
siliceous sand have been formed in the sea, by the combination of an 
unknown acid from morasses, and the calcareous matters of the ocean. 

13. The warm waters which are found in nvmy countries, are 
owing to steam arising from great depths, through the fissures of lime- 
stone or lava, elevated by subterranean fires, and condensed between 
the strata of the hills over them, and not from any decomposition of 
pyrites or manganese near the surface of the earth. 

14. The columns of basaltes have been raised by the congelation or 
expansion of granite beds, in the act of cooling, from their semi- 
vitreous fusion. 



NOTE XXV EVAPORATION. 

Aquatic JVy?n/ihs ! — you lead with viewless march 
The winged Vapours ufi the aerial arch. 

Canto III. 1. 13. 

1. THE atmosphere will dissolve a certain quantity of moisture, 
as a chemical menstruum, even when it is much below the freezing 
point, as appears from the diminution of ice suspended in frosty air ; 
but a much greater quantity of water is evaporated, and suspended 
in the air, by means of heat, which is, perhaps, the universal cause 
of fluidity ; for water is known to boil with less heat in vacuo, which 
is a proof that it will evaporate faster in vacuo, and that the air, 
therefore, rather hinders than promotes its evaporation in higher 
degrees of heat. The quick evaporation occasioned in vacuo by a 
small degree of heat, is agreeably seen in what is termed a pulse- 
glass, which consists of an exhausted tube of glass, with a bulb at 
each end of it, and with about two thirds of the cavity filled with 
alkohol, in which the spirit is instantly seen to boil, by the heat of the 
finger-end applied on a bubble of steam in the lower bulb, and is con- 
densed again in the upper bulb by the least conceivable comparative 
coldness. 

2. Another circumstance, evincing that heat is the principal cause 
of evaporation, is, that at the time of water being converted intu 
steam, a great quantity of heat is taken away from the neighbouring 
bodies. It" a thermometer be repeatedly dipped in ether, or in recti- 
fied spirit of wine, and exposed to a bias*; of air, to expedite the 



^Tote 15. EVAPORATION. 215 

evaporation by perpetually removing the saturated air from it, the 
thermometer will presently sink below freezing. This warmth, 
taken from the ambient bodies at the time of evaporation by the steam, 
is again given out when the steam is condensed into water. Hence 
the water in a worm-tub, during distillation, so soon becomes hot; 
and hence the warmth accompanying the descent of rain in cold 
weather. 

3. The third circumstance, showing that heat is the principal cause 
of evaporation, is, that some of the steam becomes again condensed 
when any part of the heat is withdrawn. Thus, when warmer south- 
west winds, replete with moisture, succeed the colder north-east 
winds, all bodies that are dense and substantial, as stone walls, brick 
floors, Sec. absorb some of the heat from the passing air, and its mois- 
ture becomes precipitated on them; while the north-east winds be- 
come warmer on their arrival in this latitude, and are thence dis- 
posed to take up more moisture, and are termed drying winds. 

4. Heat seems to be the principal cause of the solution of many 
other bodies, as common salt, or blue vitriol, dissolved in water, 
which, when exposed to severe cold, are precipitated, or carried to 
the part of the water last frozen : this I observed in a phial filled 
with a solution of blue vitriol, which was frozen ; the phial was burst, 
the ice thawed, and a blue column of cupreous vitriol was left stand- 
ing upright on the bottom of the broken glass, as described in note 
XIX. art. 3o 

II. Hence water may either be dissolved in air, and may then be 
called an aerial solution of water ; or it may be dissolved in the fluid 
matter of heat, according to the theory of M. Lavoisier, and may 
then be called steam. In the former case, it is probable, there are 
many other vapours which may precipitate it, as marine aCid gas, or 
fluor acid gas. So alkaline gas and acid gas, dissolved in air, precis 
pitate each other ; nitrous gas precipitates vital air from its azote ; 
and inflammable gas, mixed with vital air, ignited by an electric sparky 
either produces or precipitates the water in both of them. Are there 
any subtle exhalations, occasionally diffused in the atmosphere, which 
may thus cause rain ? 

1. But as water is, perhaps, many hundred times more soluble in 
the fluid matter of heat than in air, I suppose the eduction of this 
heat, by whatever means it is occasioned, is the principal cause of 
devaporation. Thus, if a region of air is brought from a warmer 
climate, as the S. W. winds, it becomes Cooled by its contact with 
the earth in this latitude, and parts with so much of its moisture as 
was dissolved in the quantity of calorique, or heat, which it now 
loses, but retains that part which was suspended by its attraction to 

Part h 2G 



;i6 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

the particles of air, or by aerial solution, even in the most severe 
frosts. 

2. A second immediate cause of rain is a stream of N. E. wind 
descending from a superior current of air, and mixing with the 
warmer S. \\\ wind below; or the reverse of this, viz. a superir 
current of S. W. wind mixing with an inferior one of N. E. wind: 
in both these cases the whole heaven becomes instantly clouded, and 
the moisture contained in the S. W. current is precipitated. This 
cause of devaporation has been ingeniously explained by Dr. Hutton, 
in the Transact, of Edinburgh, vol. i. and seems to arise from this 
circumstance ; the particles of air of the N. E. wind educe pail of 
the heat from the S. YV. wind, and therefore the water which was 
dissolved by that quantity of heat is precipitated ; all the other part 
of the water, which was suspended by its attraction to the particles 
of air, or dissolved in the remainder of the heat, continues unpre- 
cipitated. 

3. A third method by which a region of air becomes cooled, and. 
in consequence, deposits much of its moisture, is from the mechani- 
cal expansion of air, when part of the pressure is taken off. In this 
case the expanded air becomes capable of receiving or attracting more 
of the matter of heat into its interstices ; and the vapour, which was 
previously dissolved in this heat, is deposited, as is seen in the receiver 
of an air-pump, which becomes dewy, as the air within becomes ex- 
panded by the eduction of part of it. See note VII. Hence, when 
the mercury in the barometer sinks without a change of the wind, 
the air generally becomes colder. See note VII. on Elementary Heat. 
And it is probably from the varying pressure of the incumbent air, 
that in summer days small black clouds are often thus suddenly pro- 
duced, and again soon vanish. See a paper in Phil. Trans, vol. lxxviii. 
entitled Frigorific Experiments on the Mechanical Expansion of Air. 

4. Another portion of atmospheric water may possibly be held in 
solution by the electric fluid, since, in thunder-storms, a precipitation 
of the water seems to be either the cause or the consequence of the 
eduction of the electricity. But it appears more probable that the 
water is condensed into clouds by the eduction of its heat, and that 
then the surplus of electricity prevents their coalescence into larger 
drops, which immediately succeeds the departure of the lightning. 

5. The immediate cause why the barometer sinks before rain, is, 
first, because a region of warm air, brought to us in the place of the 
cold air which it had dis- laced, must weigh lighter, both specifi- 
cally and absolutely, if the height of the warm atmosphere be sup- 
posed to be equal to that of the preceding cold one. And, secondly, 
after the drops of rain begin to fall in an)' column of air, that column 



Note 26. SPRINGS. 217 

becomes lighter, the falling drops only adding to the pressure of the 
air in proportion to the resistance which they meet with in passing 
through that fluid. 

If we could suppose water to be dissolved in air without heat, or in 
very low degrees of heat, I suppose the air would become heavier, as 
happens in many chemical solutions ; but if water, dissolved in the 
matter of heat, or calorique, be mixed with an aerial solution of wa- 
ter, there can be no doubt but an atmosphere consisting of such a 
mixture, must become lighter in proportion to the quantity of calo- 
rique. On the same circumstance depends the visible vapour pro- 
duced from the breath of animals in cold weather, or from a boiling 
kettle ; the particles of cold air with which it is mixed, steal a part 
of its heat, and become themselves raised in temperature ; whence 
part of the water is precipitated in visible vapour, which, if in great 
quantity, sinks to the ground; if in small quantity, and the sur- 
rounding air is not previously saturated, it spreads itself till it becomes 
again dissolved. 



NOTE XXVI.- SPRINGS, 

Your lucid bands condense ivith fingers chill 
The blue mist hovering round the gelid hill. 

Canto III. 1. 19. 

THE surface of the earth consists of strata, many of which were 
formed originally beneath the sea ; the mountains were afterwards 
forced up by subterraneous fires, as appears from the fissures in the 
recks of which they consist, the quantity of volcanic productions all 
over the world, and the numerous remains of craters of volcanos in 
mountainous countries. Hence the strata which compose the sides of 
mountains lie slanting downwards, and one or two, or more, of the 
external strata not reaching to the summit when the mountain was 
raised up, the second or third stratum, or a more inferior one, is 
there exposed to day ; this may be well represented by forcibly- 
thrusting a blunt instrument through several sheets of paper; a bur 
will stand up with the lowermost sheet, standing highest in the centre 
of it. On this uppermost stratum, which is colder as it is more ele- 
vated, the dews are condensed in large quantities, and, sliding down, 
pass under the first, or second, or third stratum, which compose the 
sides of the hill, and either form a morass below or a weeping rock, 
by oozing out in numerous places ; or many of these less currents 
fleeting together, burst out in a more copious rill. 



m HOTANTC GARDEN". Part L 

The summits of mountains are much colder than the plains in their 
vicinity, owing to several causes : 1. Their being, in a manner, insu- 
lated, or cut ofF from the common heat of the earth, which is alwa; t 
of 48 degrees, and perpetually counteracts the effects of external cold 
beneath that degree. 2. From their surfaces being larger in propor- 
tion to their solid contents, and hence their heat more expeditiously 
carried away by the ever-moving atmosphere. 3. The increasing 
parity of the air as the mountain rises. All those bodies which con- 
duct electricity well or ill, conduct the matter of heat likewise well or 
ill. See note VII. Atmospheric air is a bad conductor of electricity, 
and thence confines it on the body where it is accumulated ; but, when 
it is made very rare, as in the exhausted receiver, the electric aura 
passes away immediately to any distance. The same circumstance 
probably happens in respect to heat, which is thus kept, by the denser 
air on the plains, from escaping, but is dissipated on the Hills, where 
the air is thinner. 4. As the currents of air rise up the sides of 
mountains, they become mechanically rarefied, the pressure of the 
incumbent column lessening as they ascend. Hence the expanding air 
absorbs heat from the mountain as it ascends, as explained in note 
VII. 5. There is another, and, perhaps, more powerful cause. I 
suspect, which may occasion the great cold on mountains, and in the 
higher parts of the atmosphere, and which has not yet been attended 
to ; I mean that the fluid matter of heat may probably gravitate round 
the earth, and form an atmosphere on its surface, mixed with the 
aerial atmosphere, which may diminish or become rarer, as it re- 
cedes from the earth's surface, in a greater proportion than the air 
diminishes. 

6. The great condensation of moisture on the summits of hills has 
another cause, which is the dashing of moving clouds against them : 
in misty days this is often seen to have great effect on plains, where 
an eminent tree, by obstructing the mist as it moves along, shall have 
a much greater quantity of moisture drop from its leaves than falls 
at the same time on the ground in its vicinity. Mr. White, in his 
History of Selborne, gives an account of a large tree so situated, from 
■which a stream flowed, during a moving mist, so as to fill the cart 
ruts in a lane otherwise not very moist ; and ingeniously adds, that 
trees planted about ponds of stagnant water, contribute much, by 
these means, to supply the reservoir. The spherules which constitute 
a mist or cloud, are kept from uniting by so small a power, that a 
little agitation against the leaves of a tree, or the greater attraction 
of a flat moist surface, condenses or precipitates them. 

If a leaf has its surface moistened, and particles of water separate 
from each other, as in a mist, be brought near the moistened surface 
of a leaf, each particle will be attracted more by that plain surface ot 



Note 27. SHELL FISH. 219 

■water on the leaf, than it can be by the surrounding particles of the 
mist ; because globules only attract each other in one point, whereas 
a plain attracts a globule by a greater extent of its surface. 

The common cold springs are thus formed on elevated grounds by 
the condensed vapours, and hence are stronger when the nights are 
cold, after hot days, in spring, than even in the wet days of winter. 
For the warm atmosphere, during the day, has dissolved much more 
water than it can support in solution during the cold of the night, 
wh'ch is thus deposited in large quantities on the hills, and yet so 
gradually as to soak in between the strata of them, rather than to 
slide off ever their surfaces, like showers of rain. The common heat 
of the internal parts of the earth is ascertained by springs which arise 
from strata of earth too deep to be affected by the heat of summer or 
the frosts of winter. Those in this country are of 48 degrees of 
heat ; those about Philadelphia were said, by Dr. Franklin, to be 52 ; 
"whether this variation is to be accounted for by the difference of the 
sun's heat on that country, according to the ingenious theory of Mr. 
Kirwan, or to the vicinity of subterranean fires, is not yet, I think, 
decided. There are, however, subterraneous streams of water not 
exactly produced in this manner, as streams issuing from fissures in 
the earth, communicating with the craters of old volcanos. In the 
Peak of Derbyshire are many hollows, called swallows, where the 
land floods sink into the earth, and come out at some miles distant, 
as at Ham, near Ashborne. See note on Fica, Part II. 

Other streams of cold water arise from beneath the snow on the 
Alps and Andes, and other high mountains, which is perpetually 
thawing at its under surface by the common heat of the earth, and 
gives rise to large rivers. For the origin of warm springs see note on 
Fucus, Part II. 



NOTE XXVII SHELL FISH. 

You round Echinus ray his arrowy mail, 
Give the keel'd Nautilus his oar and sail ; 
Firm to his rock with silver cords suspend 
The anchor'd Pinna, and his Cancer-friend. 

Canto III. 1. 67. 

THE armour of the Echinus, or Sea hedge-hog, consists generally 
of moveable spines; (Linnai System. Nat. vol. i. p. 1102.) and, in 
that respect, resembles the armour of the land animal of the same 
■name. The irregular protuberances on other sea-shells, as on some 



220 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part t 

species of the Purpura, and Murex, serve then* as a fortification 
against the attacks of their enemies. 

It is said that this animal foresees tempestuous weathers, and, sink- 
ing to the bottom of the sea, adheres firmly to sea-plants, or other 
bodies, by means of a substance which resembles the horns of snails. 
Above twelve hundred of these fillets have been counted, by which 
this animal fixes itself; and when afloat, it contracts these fillets be- 
tween the bases of its points, the number of which often amounts to 
two thousand. Diet. Raisonne. art. Oursin de mer. 

There is a kind of Nautilus, called, by Linnsus, Argonauta, whose 
shell has but one cell : of this animal Pliny affirms, that having exo- 
nerated its shell by throwing out the water, it swims upon the surface, 
extending a web of wonderful tenuity, and bending back two of its 
arms, and rowing with the rest, makes a sail, and, at length, re- 
ceiving the water, dives again* Plin. IX. 29. Linnaeus adds to his 
description of this animal, that like the Crab Diogenes, or Bernhard, 
it occupies a house not its own, as it is not connected to its shell, and 
is therefore foreign to it. Who could have given credit to this if it 
had not been attested by so many who have, with their own eyes, 
seen this argonaut in the act of sailing? Syst. Nat. p. 1161. 

The Nautilus, properly so named by Linnsus, has a shell, consist- 
ing of many chambers, of which cups are made in the East with beau- 
tiful painting and carving on the mother-pearl. The animal is said to 
inhabit only the uppermost or open chamber, which is larger than the 
rest; and that the rest remain empty, except that the pipe, or siphun- 
culus, which communicates from one to the other of them, is filled 
with an appendage of the animal, like a gut or sti'ing. Mr. Hook, 
in his Philos. Exper. p. 306, imagines this to be a dilatable or com- 
pressible tube, like the air bladders of fish, and that, by contracting 
or permitting it to expand, it renders its shell buoyant, or the con- 
trary. See note on Ulva, Part II. 

The Pinna, or Sea-wing, is contained in a two- valve shell, weighing 
sometimes fifteen pounds, and emits a beard of fine long glossy silk- 
like fibres, by which it is suspended to the rocks twenty or thirty feet 
beneath the surface of the sea. In this situation it is so successfully 
attacked by the eight-footed Polypus, that the species, perhaps, could 
not exist but for the exertions of the Cancer Pinnotheris, who lives 
in the same shell as a guard and companion. Amcen. Acad. vol. ii. 
p. 48. Lin. Syst. Nat. vol. i. p. 1159, and p. 1040. 

The Pinnotheris, or Pinnophylax, is a small crab, naked, like Ber- 
nard the Hermit, hut is furnished with good eyes, and lives in the 
same shell with the Pinna : when they want food the Pinna opens it 
shell, and sends its faithful ally to forage; but if the Cancer sees the 
Polypus, he returns suddenly to the arms of his blind hostess, who, by 



Note 27. SHELL FISH. 22i 

closing the shell, avoids the fury of her enemy ; otherwise, when it 
has procured a booty, it brings it to the opening of the shell, where 
it is admitted, and they divide the prey. This was observed by Has- 
lequist, in his voyage to Palestine. 

The Byssus of the ancients, according to Aristotle, was the beard 
of the Pinna above-mentioned, but seems to have been used by other 
writers indiscriminately for any spun material, which was esteemed 
finer or more valuable than wool. Reaumur says the threads of this 
Byssus are not less fine or less beautiful than the silk, as it is spun by 
the silk- worm ; the Pinna on the coast of Italy and Provence (where 
it is fished up by iron-hooks fixed on long poles) is called the silk* 
worm of the sea. The stockings and gloves manufactured from it, 
are of exquisite fineness, but too warm for common wear, and are 
thence esteemed useful in rheumatism and gout. Diet. Raisonne, art. 
Pinne-marine. The warmth of the Byssus, like that of silk, is pro- 
hably owing to their being bad conductors of heat, as well as of elec- 
tricity. When these fibres are broken by violence, this animal, as 
well as the muscle, has the power to re-produce them like the com- 
mon spiders, as was observed by M. Adanson. As raw silk, and raw 
cobwebs, when swallowed, are liable to produce great sickness (as I 
am informed) it is probable, the part of muscles which sometimes 
disagrees with the people who eat them, may be this silky web, by 
which they attach themselves to stones. The large kind of Pinna 
contains some mother-pearl, of a reddish tinge, according to M. d'Ar- 
genville. The substance sold under the name of Indian-weed, and 
used at the bottom of fish-lines, is probably a production of this kind ; 
which, however, is scarcely to be distinguished by the eye from the 
tendons of a rat's tail, after they have been separated by putrefaction. 
in water, and well cleaned and rubbed ; a production which I was 
once shown as a great curiosity ; it had the uppermost bone of the 
tail adhering to it, and was said to have been used as an ornament in 
a lady's hair. 



NOTE XXVIII— STURGEON, 

With worm-like beard his toothless lifts array, 
And teach the unwieldy Sturgeon to betray. 

Canto III. 1. 71. 

THE Sturgeon, Aci/icnscr, Strurio. Lin. Syst. Nat. vol. i. p. 403, 
is a fish of great curiosity, as well as of great importance ; his mouth 
is placed under the head, without teeth, like the opening of a purse* 



222 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

which he has the power to push suddenly out, or retract. Before 
this mouth, under the beak, or nose, hang four tendrils, some inches 
'ong, and which so resemble earth-worms, that at first sight they 
may be mistaken for them. This clumsy toothless fish is supposed 
by this contrivance, to keep himself in good condition, the solidity 
of his flesh evidently showing him to be a fish of prey. He is said 
to hide his large body amongst the weeds near the sea coast, or at the 
mouths of large rivers, only exposing his cirrhi, or tendrils, which 
snvdl fish, or sea insects, mistaking for real worms, approach for 
plunder, and are sucked into the jaws of their enemy. He has been 
supposed by some to root into the soil at the bottom of the sea or 
rivers ; but the cirrhi, or tendrils above mentioned, which hang from 
his snout over his mouth, must themselves be very inconvenient for 
this purpose, and, as it has no jaws, it evidently lives by suction, and 
during its residence in the sea, a quantity of sea-insects are found in 
its stomach. 

The flesh was so valued in the time of the Emperor Severus, that 
it was brought to table by servants with coronets on their heads, and 
preceded by music, which might give rise to its being, in our country, 
presented by the Lord Mayor to the King. At present it is caught 
in the Danube, and the Wolga, the Don, and other large rivers, for 
various purposes. The skin makes the best covering for carriages ; 
isinglass is prepared from parts of the skin ; cavear from the spawn ; 
and the flesh is pickled, or salted, and sent all over Europe. 



NOTE XXIX.— OIL ON WATER. 

Or with fine JUms, suspended o'er (he deep, 
Of oil effusive lull (he ivaves (o sleep. 

Canto III. 1. S/. 

THERE is reason to believe, that when oil is poured upon watei , 
the two surfaces do not touch each other, but that the oil is suspended 
over the water by their mutual repulsion. This seems to be rendered 
probable by the following experiment : If one drop of oil be dropped 
on a bason of water, it will immediately diffuse itself over the whole, 
for there being no friction between the two surfaces, there is nothing 
to prevent its spreading itself by the gravity of the upper part of it, 
except its own tenacity, into a pellicle of the greatest tenuity. But 
if a second drop of oil be put upon the former, it does not spread 
itself, but remains in the form of a drop, as the other already occu 



Note 29. OIL ON WATER. 223 

pied the whole surface of the bason ; and there is friction in oil pas- 
sing over oil, though none in oil passing over water. 

Hence, when oil is diffused on the surface of water, gentle breezes 
have no influence in raising waves upon it ; for a small quantity of oil 
■will cover a very great surface of water (I suppose a spoonful will 
diffuse itself over some acres), and the wind blowing upon this, carries 
it gradually forwards, and there being no friction between the two 
surfaces, the water is not affected. On which account oil has no 
effect in stilling the agitation of the water after the wind ceases, as 
was found by the experiments of Dr. Franklin. 

This circumstance, lately brought into notice by Dr. Franklin, had 
been mentioned bv Pliny, and is said to be in use by the divers for 
pearls, who, in windy weather, take down with them a little oil in 
their mouths, which they occasionally give out, when the inequality of 
the supernatant waves prevents them from seeing sufficiently distinctly 
for their purpose. 

The wonderful tenuity with which oil can be spread upon water, is 
evinced by a few drops projected from a bridge, where the eye is 
properly placed over it, passing through all the prismatic colours as 
it diffuses itself. And also from another curious experiment of Dr. 
Franklin's: he cut a piece of cork to about the size of a letter-wafer, 
leaving a point standing off like a tangent, at one edge of the circle. 
This piece of cork was then dipped in oil, and thrown into a large 
pond of water, and as the oil flowed off at the point, the cork-wafer 
continued to revolve in a contrary direction for several minutes ; the 
oil flowing off all that time at the pointed tangent, in coloured streams. 
In a small pond of water this experiment does not so well succeed, as 
the circulation of the cork stops as soon as the water becomes covered 
with the pellicle of oil. See Additional Notes, No. XIII. and note on 
Fucus, Part II. 

The ease with which oil' and water slide over each other, is agree- 
ably seen if a phial be about half filled with equal parts of oil and 
water, and made to oscillate, suspended by a string ; the upper sur- 
face of the oil, and the lower one of the writer will always keep 
smooth : but the agitation of the surfaces where the oil and water 
meet, is curious ; for their specific gravities being not very different, 
and their friction on each other nothing, the highest side of the water, 
as the phial descends in its oscillation, having acquired a greater mn« 
mentum than the lowest side (from its having descended further) 
would rise the highest on the ascending side of the oscillation, and. 
'.hence pushes the then uppermost part of the water amongst the oil* 



ROTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

NOTE XXX.— SHIP-WORM. 

Met ' fell Teredo, as he mines the keel 

With beaked head, and break his li/is of steel. 

Canto III. 1. 91. 

THE Teredo, or ship-worm, has two calcareous jaws, hemisphe- 
rical, flat before and angular behind. The shell is taper, winding, 
penetrating ships and submarine wood, and was brought from India 
into Europe. Linnxi System. Nat. p. 1267. The Tarieres, or sea- 
worms, attack and erode ships with such fury, and in such numbers, 
as often greatly to endanger them. It is said that our vessels have 
not known this new enemy above fifty years ; that they were brought 
from the sea about the Antilles, to our parts of the ocean, where 
they have increased prodigiously. They bore their passage in the 
direction of the fibres of the wood, which is their nourishment, and 
cannot return or pass obliquely, and thence, when they come to a knot 
in the wood, or when two of them meet together, with their stony 
mouths, they perish for want of food. 

In the year 1731 and 1732, the United Provinces were under a dread- 
ful alarm concerning these insects, which had made great depreda- 
tion on the piles which support the banks of Zealand; but it was 
happily discovered a few years afterwards, that these insects had 
totally abandoned that island (Diet. Raisonne, art. Vers Rongeurs), 
which might have been occasioned by their not being able to live in 
that latitude when the winter was rather severer than usual. 



NOTE XXXI.— MAELSTROM. 

Turn the broad helm, the fluttering- canvas urge 
Fran Maelstrom's fierce innavigable surge. 

Canto III. 1. 93. 

ON the coast of Norway there is an extensive vortex, or eddy, 
which lies between the islands of Moskoe and Moskenas, and is called 
Moskoestrom, or Maelstrom; it occupies some leagues in circiUBn 
ierencc, and is said to be very dangerous, and often destructive to 
vessels navigating these seas. It is not easy to understand the exist- 
ence of a constant descending stream, without supposing it must piss 
through a subterranean cavity, to some other part of the earth or 
ocean which may lit beneath its level ; as the Mediterrane 



Note 31. MAELSTROM. 2H5 

to lie beneath the level of the Atlantic ocean, which, therefore, con- 
stantly flows into it through the Straits ; and the waters of the Gulf 
of Mexico lie much above the level of the sea about the Floridas, and 
farther northward, which gives rise to the Gulf-stream, as described 
in note on Cassia, in Part II. 

The Maelstrom is said to be still twice in about twenty-four hours, 
when the tide is up, and most violent at the opposite times of the day. 
This is not difficult to account for, since, when so much water is 
brought over the subterraneous passage, if such exists, as completely 
to fill it, and stand many feet above it, less disturbance must appear 
on the surface. The Maelstrom is described in the Memoirs of the 
Swedish Academy of Sciences, and Pontopiddon's History of Norway, 
and in the Universal Museum for 1763, p. 131. 

The reason why eddies of water become hollow in the middle is, 
because the water immediately over the centre of the well, or cavity, 
falls faster, having less friction to oppose its descent than the water 
over the circumference or edges of the well. The circular motion, 
or gyration of eddies, depends on the obliquity of the course of the: 
stream, or to the friction or opposition to it being greater on one side 
of the well than the other. I have observed in water passing through 
a hole in the bottom of a trough, which was always kept full, the 
gyration of the stream might be turned either way by increasing the 
opposition of one side of the eddy with one's finger, or by turning 
the spout, through which the water was introduced, a little more 
obliquely to the hole on one side or on the other. Lighter bodies 
are liable to be retained long in eddies of water; while those rather' 
heavier than water, are soon thrown out beyond the circumference, 
by their acquired momentum becoming greater than that of the wa- 
ter. Thus, if equal portions of oil and water be put into a phial, 
and, by means of a string, be whirled in a circle round the hand, the 
water will always keep at the greater distance from the centre ; 
whence, in the eddies formed in rivers during a flood, a person who 
endeavours to keep above water, or to swim, is liable to be detained 
in them, but on suffering himself to sink, or dive, he is said readily 
to escape. This circulation of water, in descending through a hole 
in a vessel, Dr. Franklin has ingeniously applied to the explanation oJ 
hurricanes, or eddies of air. 



Q26 BOTANIC GARDEA. 

NOTE XXXII— GLACIERS. 

Where round dark cragx indignant Waters bend 
Through rifted ice, in ivory veins descend. 

Canto III. 1. 115. 

THE common heat of the interior parts of the earth being ifoaj i 
AS degrees, both in winter and summer, the snow which lies in con- 
tact with it is always in a thawing state. Hence, in ice-houses, the 
external parts of the collection of ice is perpetually thawing, and thus 
preserves the intern d part of it, so that it is necessary to lay up many 
tons for the preservation of one ton. Hence, in Italy, considerable 
rivers have their source from beneath the eternal glaciers, or moun- 
tains of snow and ice. 

In our country, when the air, in the course of a frost, continues a 
day or two at very near 32 degrees, the common heat of the earth 
thaws the ice on its surface, -while the thermometer remains at the 
•freezing point. • This circumstance is often observable in the rimy 
mornings of spring; the thermometer shall continue at the freezing 
p^int, yet all the rime will vanish, excipl that which happens to lie 
on a bridge, a board, or on a cake of cow-dung, which, being thus, 
as it were, insulated or cut off from so free a communication with the 
common heat of the earth, by means of the air under the bridge, or 
wood, or dung, which arc bad conductors of heat, continues some 
time longer unthawed. Hence, when the gr< und is covered thick, with 
snow, though the frost continues, and the sun does not shine, yet the 
snow is observed to decrease very sensibly : for the common heat of 
the earth melts the under surface of it, and the upper one evaporates 
by its solution in the air. The great evaporation of ice was observed 
by Mr. Boyle, which experiment I repeated some time ago. Having 
suspended apiece of ice by a wire, and weighed it with care, without 
touching it wiih my hand, I hung it out the whole of a clear frosty 
nighfc, and found in the morning it had lost nearly a fifth of its weight. 
Mr. N. Walierhis has since observed, that ice, at the time of its con~ 
gelation, evaporates faster than water in its fluid form ; which may 
be accounted for from the heat given out at the instant of freezing; 
(Saussure's Essais sur Hygromet. p. 2 19.) but this effect is only 
momentary. 

Thus the vegetables that are covered with snow arc seldom injured; 
since, as they lie between the thawing snow, which has S2 degrees of 
heat, and the covered earth, which has 48, they are preserved in a 
degree of heat between these, viz. in -10 degrees of heat. Whence 
the moss on which the rein-deer iced, in the northern latitudes, vege- 



Note 35. WINDS. 32? 

tates beneath the snow ; (see note on Muschus, Part IT.) and hence 
many Lapland and Alpine plants perished through cold in the botanic 
garden at Upsal ; for, in their native situations, though the cold is 
much more intense, yet at its very commencement they are covered 
deep with snow, which remains till late in the spring. For this fact 
see Amaenit. Academ. vol. i. No. 48. In our climate such plants do 
well covered with dried fem, under which they will grow, and even 
flower, till the severe vernal frosts cease. For the increase of glaciers 
see note on Canto I. 1. 529. 



NOTE XXXIII WINDS. 

JVhile southern Gales o'er western oceans roll, 
jind Eurus steals his ice-ivindsfrom the Pole. 

Canto IV. 1. 15. 

THE theory of the winds is yet very imperfect, in part, perhaps, 
•owing to the want of observations sufficiently numerous of the exact 
times and places where they begin and cease to blow, but chiefly to our 
yet imperfect knowledge of the means by which great regions of air 
are either suddenly produced or suddenly destroyed. 

The air is perpetually subject to increase or diminution, from its 
combination with other bodies, or its evolution from them. The vita] 
part of the air, called oxygene, is continually produced in this cli- 
mate, from the perspiration of vegetables in the sunshine, and pro- 
bably from the action of light on clouds, or on water, in the tropical 
climates, where the sun has greater power, and may exert some yet 
unknown laws of luminous combination. Another part of the atmos- 
phere, which is called azote, is perpetually set at liberty from animal 
and vegetable bodies by putrefaction or combustion, from many springs 
of water, from volatile alkali, and probably from fixed alkali, of 
which there is an exhaustless source in the water of the ocean. Both 
these component parts of the air are perpetually again diminished by 
their contact with the soil, which covers the surface of the earth, 
producing nitre. The oxygene is diminished in the production of all 
acids, of which the carbonic and muriatic exist in great abundance. 
The azote is diminished in the growth of animal bodies, of which it 
constitutes an important part, and in its combinations with many other 
natural productions. 

They are both probably diminished, in immense quantities, by 
uniting with the inflammable air, which arises from the mud of rivers 
and lakes at some seasons^ when the atmosphere is light j the oxygene 



S28 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

of the air producing water, and the azote producing volatile alkali, 
Ly their combinations with this inflammable air. At other seasons oi 
the year these principles may again change their combinations, and 
the atmospheric air be repi-oduced. 

Mr. L i.i i aer found that one pound of charcoal, in burning, con- 
sumed two pounds nine ounces of vital air, or oxygene. The con- 
sumption of vital air, in the process of making red-lead, may readily 
be reduced to calculation ; a small barrel contains about twelve hun- 
dred weight of this commodity; 1200 pounds of lead, by calcination, 
absorb about 144 pounds of vital air : now, as a cubic foot of water 
weighs 1000 averdupoise ounces, and as vital air is about 800 times 
lighter than water, it follows, that every barrel of red-lead contains 
nearly 2000 cubic feet of vital air. If this can be performed in mini- 
ature in a small oven, what may not be done in the immense elabo- 
ratories of nature ! 

These great elaboratories of nature include almost all her fossil, as 
well as her animal and vegetable productions. Dr. Priestley obtained 
air of greater or less purity, both vital and azotic, from almost all the 
fossil substances he subjected to experiment. Four ounce-weight of 
lava, from Iceland, heated in an earthen retort, yielded twenty ounce- 
measures of air. 



4 ounce- 

'7 . . . 


weight of lava ga 


ve 20 ounce-measures of air. 






. 40 


li . . . 






1 . . . . 






7 . . . 






4 . . . . 




. 230 


4 . . . . 


clay 

lime-stone spar . 


. 20 


4 . . . 

5 . . . . 


. . S30 






. 630 


-t 






4 . 




. . 410 




molybdena . . . 


, 




o 




. 40 


4 . . . 


barytes 

black wad 


. . 26 




coal 


.700 



In this account the fixed air was previously extracted from tlit 
time- stones by acids, and the heat applied was much less thj 



Note 83. WINDS. S3U 

necessary to extract all the air from the bodies employed. Add to 
this the known quantities of air which are combined with the calci- 
form ores, as the ochres of iron, manganese, calamy, grey ore of 
lead, and some idea may be formed of the great production of air in 
volcanic eruptions, as mentioned in note on Chunda, Part II. and of 
the perpetual absorptions and evolutions of whole oceans of air from, 
every part of the earth. 

But there would seem to be an officina aeris, a shop where air is 
both manufactured and destroyed in the greatest abundance within. 
the polar circles, as will hereafter be spoken of. Can this be effected 
by some yet unknown law of the congelation of aqueous or saline. 
fluids, which may set at liberty their combined heat, and convert a 
part both of the acid and alkali of sea-water into their component 
airs ? Or, on the contrary, can the electricity of the northern lights. 
convert inflammable air and oxygene into water, whilst the great 
degree of cold at the poles unites the azote with some other base ? 
Another officina aeris, or manufacture of air, would seem to exist 
within the tropics, or at the line, though in a much less quantity than 
at the poles, owing, perhaps, to the action of the sun's light on the 
moisture suspended in the air, as will also be spoken of hereafter ; 
but in all other parts of the earth these absorptions and evolutions of 
air, in a greater or less degree, are perpetually going on in incon- 
ceivable abundance ; increased, probably, and diminished, at differ-. 
ent seasons of the year, by the approach or retrocession of the sun's 
light : future discoveries must elucidate this part of the subject. T© 
this should be added, that as heat and electricity, and perhaps mag- 
netism, are known to displace air, that it is not impossible but that 
the increased or diminished quantities of these fluids diffused in the 
atmosphere, may increase its weight as well as its bulk ; since their 
specific attractions, or affinities to matter, are very strong, they 
probably also possess general gravitation to the earth ; a subject 
which wants further investigation. See note XXVI. 

SOUTH-WEST WINDS. 

The velocity of the surface of the earth, in moving round its axis, 
diminishes from the equator to the poles. Whence, if a region of 
air, in this country, should be suddenly removed a few degrees to- 
wards the north, it must constitute a western wind, because, from 
the velocity it had pi'eviously acquired in this climate, by its friction 
with the earth, it would, for a time, move quicker than the sur- 
face of the country it was removed to. The contrary must ensue 
when a region of air is transported from this country a few degrees 
!, because the velocity it had acquired in this climate would 



230 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part f. 

be less than that of the earth's surface where it was renv 
whence it would appear to constitute a wind from the east, while, in 
reality, the eminent parts of the earth would be carried against the 
too slow air. Iiut if this transportation of air from south to north be 
performed gradually, the motion of the wind will blow in the diagonal 
between south and west. And, on the contrary, if a region of air 
be gradually removed from north to south, it would also blow diago- 
nally between the north and east ; from whence \se may safely con- 
clude, that all our winds in this country which blow from the north 
or east, or any point between them, consist of regions of air brought 
from the north ; and that all our winds blowing from the south or 
west, or from any point between them, are regions of air brought 
from the south. 

It frequently happens, during the vernal months, that after a north- 
east wind has passed over us for several weeks, during which time the 
barometer has stood at above 30k inches, it becomes suddenly suc- 
ceeded by a south-west wind, which also continues several weeks, and 
the barometer sinks to nearly 28 \ inches. Now, as two inches of the 
mercury in the barometer balance one-fifteenth part of the whole at- 
mosphere, an important question here presents itself: What is be- 
come of all this air ? 

1. This great quantity of air cannot be carried in a superior current 
towards the line, while the inferior current flows towards the poles, 
because then it would equally affect the barometer, which should not, 
therefore, subside from 30§ inches to 28i, for six weeks together. 

2. It cannot be owing to the air having lost all the moisture which 
was previously dissolved in it, because these warm south-west winds 
are replete with moisture ; and the cold north-east winds, which 
weigh up the mercury in the barometer to 31 inches, consist of dry- 
air. 

3. It cannot be carried over the polar regions, and be accumulated 
on the meridian opposite to us, in its passage towards the line, as such 
an accumulation would equal one-fifteenth of the whole atmosphere, 
and cannot be supposed to remain in that situation for six weeks to- 
gether. 

4. It cannot depend on the existence of tides in the atmosphere, 
since it must then correspond to lunar periods. Nor on accumulations 
of air from the specific levity of the upper regions of the atmosphere, 
since its degree of fluidity must correspond with its tenuity, and con- 
sequently such great mountains of air cannot be supposed to exist for 
so many weeks together as the south-west winds sometimes continue. 

5. It remains, therefore, that there must be, at this time, a great 
and sudden absorption of air in the polar circle, by some unknown 
operation ■' that the south wind runs in to supply the de» 



KotE 33. Winds. «si 

ficicncy. Now, as this south wind consists of air brought from a part 
of the earth's surf ice which moves faster than it does in this climate, 
it must have, at the same time, a direction from the west, by retain- 
ing part of the velocity it had previously acquired. These south-west 
winds, coming from a warmer country, and becoming colder by their 
contact with the earth of this climate, and by their expansion (so 
great a part of the superincumbent atmosphere having vanished) pre- 
cipitate their moisture ; and as they continue for several weeks to be 
absorbed in the polar circle, would seem to receive a perpetual sup- 
ply from the tropical regions, especially over the line, as will here- 
after be spoken of. 

It may sometimes happen that a north-east wind, having passed 
over us, may be bent down, and driven back, before it has acquired 
any heat from the climate; and may thus, for a few hours, or a day, 
have a south-west direction ; and from its descending from a higher 
region of the atmosphere, may possess a greater degree of cold than 
an inferior north-east current of air. 

The extreme cold of January 13, 1709, at Paris, came on with a 
gentle south wind, and was diminished when the wind changed to the 
north, which is accounted for by Mr. Homberg, from a reflux of air 
which had been flowing for some time from the north. Chemical Es- 
says by R. Watson, vol. v. p. 182. 

It may happen that a north-east current may, for a day or two, 
pass over us, and produce incessant rain, by mixing with the inferior 
south-west current ; but this, as well as the former, is of short dura- 
tion, as its friction will soon carry the inferior current along with it 3 
and dry or frosty weather will then succeed. 

NORTH-EAST WINDS. 

The north-east winds of this country consist of regions of air from 
the north, travelling sometimes at the rate of about a mile in two 
minutes, during the vernal months, for several weeks together, from 
the polar regions toward the south, the mercury in the barometer 
standing above 30. These winds consist of air greatly cooled by the 
evaporation of the ice and snow over which it passes, and, as they 
become warmer by their contact with the earth of this climate, are 
capable of dissolving more moisture as they pass along, and are thence 
attended with frosts in winter, and with dry hot weather in summer. 

1. This great quantity of air cannot be supplied by superior cur- 
rents passing in a contrary direction from south to north, because 
such currents must, as they arise into the atmosphere a mile or two- 
high, become exposed to so great cold as to occasion them to deposit 
their moisture, which would fall through the inferior current upop 
the earth in some part of their passage. 

Part L 2 I 



BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

2. The whole atmosphere must have increased in quantity, because 
it appears by the barometer that there exists one-fifteenth part bmtc 
air over us for many weeks together, which could not be thus accu- 
mulated by difference of temperature in respect to heat, or by any 
aerostatic laws at present known, or by any lunar influence. 

From whence it would appear that immense masses of air were set 
at liberty from their combinations with solid bodies, along with a suf- 
ficient quantity of combined heat, within the polar circle, or in some 
region to the north of us ; and that they thus perpetually increase the 
quantity of the atmosphere ; and that this is again, at certain times, 
re-absorbed, or enters into new combinations at the line or tropical 
regions. By which wonderful contrivance the atmosphere is perpetu- 
ally renewed, and rendered fit for the support of animal and vegeta- 
ble life* 

SOUTH-EAST WINDS. 

The south-east winds of this country consist of air from the north, 
which had passed by us, or over us, and before it had obtained the 
velocity of the tarth's surface in this climate, had been driven back, 
owing to a deficiency of air now commencing at the polar regions. 
Hence these are generally dry or freezing winds, and if they succeed 
north-east winds, should prognosticate a change of wind from north- 
east to south-west : the barometer is generally about 30. They are 
sometimes attended with cloudy weather, or rain, owing to their 
having acquired an increased degree of warmth and moisture before 
they became retrograde ; or to their being mixed with air from the 
south. 

2. Sometimes these south-east winds consist of a vertical eddy of 
north-east air, without any mixture of south-west air ; in that case 
the barometer continues above 30, and the weather is dry or frosty 
for four or five days together. 

It should here be observed, that air being an elastic fluid, must be 
more liable to eddies than water, and that these eddies must extend 
into Cylinders-, or vortexes, of greater diameter, and that if a vertical 
eddy of north-east air be of small diameter, or has passed but a little 
way to the south of us before its return, it will not have gained the 
velocity of the earth's surface to the south of us, and will, in conse- 
quence, become a south-cast wind. But if the vertical eddy be of 
large diameter, or has passed much to the south of us, it will have 
acquired velocity from its friction with the earth's surface to the south 
of us, and will, in consequence, on its return, become a south-west 
wind, producing great cold. 



Note 83, WINDS. 



NORTH-WEST WINDS, 



There seem to be three sources of the north-west -winds of this 
hemisphere of the earth. 1. When a portion of southern air, which 
was passing over us, is driven back by accumulation of new air in the 
polar regions. In this case I suppose they are generally moist or 
rainy winds, with the barometer under 30; and if the wind had pre- 
viously been in the south-west, it would seem to prognosticate a 
change to the north-east. 

2. If a current of north wind is passing over us but a few miles 
high, without any easterly direction, and is bent down upon us, it 
must immediately possess a westerly direction, because it will now 
move faster than the surface of the earth where it arrives ; and thus 
becomes changed from a north-east to a north-west wind. The de- 
scent of a north-east current of air producing a north-west wind, may 
continue some days with clear or freezing weather, as it may be simply 
owing to a vertical eddy of north-east air, as will be spoken of below* 
Tt may otherwise be forced down by a current of south-west wind 
passing over it ; and in this case it will be attended with rain for a 
few days, by the mixture of the two airs of different degrees of heat ; 
and will prognosticate a change of wind from north-east to south-west, 
if the wind was previously in the north-east quarter. 

3. On the eastern coast of North-America the north-west winds 
bring frost, as the north-east winds do in this country, as appears 
from variety of testimony. This seems to happen from a vertical 
spiral eddy made in the atmosphere, between the shore and the ridge 
of mountains which form the spine, or back-bone, of that continent. 
If a current of water runs along the hypothenuse of a triangle, an eddy 
will be made in the included angle, which will turn round like a 
water-wheel, as the stream passes in contact with one edge of it. The 
same must happen when a sheet of air, flowing along from the north- 
cast, rises from the shore, in a straight line, to the summit of the 
Apalachian mountains ; a part of the stream of north-east air will 
flow over the mountains, another part will revert, and circulate spi- 
rally between the summit of the country and the eastern shore, con- 
tinuing to move toward the south, and thus be changed from a north- 
east to a north west wind. 

This vertical spiral eddy, having been in contact with the cold sum- 
mits of these mountains, and descending from higher parts of the at- 
mosphere, will lose part of its heat, and thus constitute one cause of 
Ihe greater coldness of the eastern sides of North-America than of 
the European shores opposite to them, which is said to be equal to 
■.-"•ch-e degrees of north latitude, which is a wonderful fact, nor ether- 



*ii BOTANIC GARDEN. Part 1. 

wise easy to be explained, since the heat of the springs at Philadelphia 
is said to be 32, which is greater than the medium heat of the earth 
in this country. 

The existence of vertical eddies, or great cylinders of air rolling on 
the surface of the earth, is agreeable to the observations of the con- 
structors of wind-mills, who, on this idea, place the area of the saiis 
leaning backwards, inclined to the horizon, anil believe that then they 
have greater power than when they are placed quite perpendicularly. 
The same kind of rolling cylinders of water obtain in rivers, owing 
to the friction of the water against the earth at their bottoms, as is 
known by bodies having been observed to float upon their surfaces 
quicker than when immersed to a certain depth. These vertical ed- 
dies of air probably exist all over the earth's surface, but particularly 
at the bottom or sides of mountains, and more so, probably, in the 
course of the south-west than of the north-east winds, because the 
former fall from an eminence, as it were, on a part of the earth 
>vhere there is a deficiency of the quantity of air, as is shown by the 
jsinking of the barometer : whereas the latter are pushed or squeezed 
forward by an addition to the atmosphere behind them, as appears by 
the rising of the barometer. 

TRADE-WINDS. 

A column of heated air becomes lighter than before, and will there- 
fore ascend, by the pressure of the cold air which surrounds it, like 
a cork in water, or like heated smoke in a chimney. 

Now, as the sun passes twice over the equator for once over either 
tropic, the equator has not time to become cool ; and, on this account, 
it is in general hotter at the line than at the tropics ; and, therefore, 
the air over the line, except in some few instances hereafter to be 
mentioned, continues to ascend at all seasons of the year, pressed up- 
wards by regions of air brought from the tropics. 

This air, thus brought from the tropics to the equator, would con-. 
stitute a north wind on one side of the equator, and a south Mind on 
the other ; but as the surface of the earth at the equator moves quicker 
than the surface of the earth at the tropics, it is evident thai 
of air brought from either tropic to the equator, and which had pre- 
viously only acquired the velocity of the earth's surface at the tropics, 
will now move too slow for the earth's surface at the equator, and 
will thence appear to move in a direction contrary to the motion of 
the earth. Hence the trade-winds, though they consist of regions of 
air brought from the north on one side of the line, and from the south 
on the other, will appear to have the diagonal direction of north-east 
and south-cast winds. 



Kote 3G. WINDS. 235 

Now, it is commonly believed that there are superior currents of 
air passing over these north-east and south-east currents in a contrary- 
direction, and which, descending near the tropics, produce vertical 
whirlpools of air. An important question here again presents itself: 
JJ'.'iaf becomes of the moisture which this heated air ought to deposit , 
as it cools in the upper regions of the atmosphere, in its journey to 
the tropics? It has been shown by Dr. Priestley and Mr. Ingcnhouz, 
that the green matter at the bottom of cisterns, and the fresh leaves 
of plants immersed in water, give out considerable quantities of vital 
air in the sunshine ; that is, the perspirable matter of plants (which 
is water much divided in its egress from their minute pores) be- 
comes decomposed by the sun's light, and converted into two kinds of 
air, tiie vital and inflammable airs. The moisture contained or dis- 
solved in the ascending heated air at the line must exist in great 
tenuity ; and, by being exposed to the great light of the sun in that 
climate, the water may be decomposed, and the new airs spread on 
the atmosphere from the line to the poles. 

1. From there being no constant deposition of rains in the usual 
course of the trade-winds, it would appear that the water rising at 
the line is decomposed in its ascent. 

2. From the observations of M. Bouguer, on the mountain Pin- 
chinca, one of the Cordeliers immediately under the line, there ap- 
pears to be no condensible vapour above three or four miles high. 
Now, though the atmosphere at that height maybe cold to a very con- 
siderable degi'ee, yet its total deprivation of condensible vapour would 
seem to show, that its water was decomposed, as there are no experi- 
ments to evince that any degree of cold hitherto known has been able 
to deprive air of its moisture ; and great abundance of snow is depo- 
sited from the air that flows to the polar regions, though it is exposed 
to no greater degrees of cold in its journey thither than probably exists 
at four miles height in the atmosphere at the line. 

3. The hygrometer of Mr. Saussure also pointed to dryness as he 
ascended into rarer air ; the single hair of which it was constructed 
contracting from deficiency of moisture. Essais sur l'Hygromet. 
p. 143. 

From these observations it appears, either that rare and cold air 
requires more moisture to saturate it than dense air, or that the 
moisture becomes decomposed, and converted into air, as it ascends 
into these cold and rare regions of the atmosphere. 

4. There seems some analogy between the circumstance of air be- 
ing produced or generated in the cold parts of the atmosphere, both, 
at the line and at the poles. 



BOTANIC GARDEN. Part L 

MONSOONS AND TORNADOES. 

1. In the Arabian and Indian seas are winds which blow six months 
one way and six months the other, and are called Monsoons ; by the 
accidental dispositions of land and sea, it happens, that in some 
places the air near the tropic is supposed to become warmer when the 
sun is vertical over it, than at the line. The air in these places con- 
sequently ascends, pressed upon one side by the north -cast regions of 
air, and on the other side by the south-west regions of air. For as 
the air brought from the south has previously obtained the velocity of 
the earth's surface at the line, it moves faster than the earth's surface 
near the tropic, where it now arrives, and becomes a south-west wind, 
while the air from the north becomes a north east wind, as before ex- 
plained. These two winds do not so quietly join and ascend as the 
north-east and south-east winds, which meet at the line with equal 
•warmth and velocity, and form the trade-winds ; but as they meet in 
contrary directions before they ascend, and cannot be supposed accu- 
rately to balance each other, a rotatory motion wi.l be produced, a;.- 
they ascend, like water falling through a hole, and an horizontal or 
spiral eddy is the consequence : the&e eddies are more or le s rapid, 
and are called Tornadoes in their most violent state, raising water 
from the ocean in the west, or sand from the deserts of the east ; in 
less violent degrees, they only mix together the two currents of north- 
east and south-west air, and produce, by this means, incessant rains, 
as the air of the north-east acquires some of the heat from the south- 
west wind, as explained in note XXV. This circumstance of the 
eddies produced by the monsoon-winds was seen by Mr. Bruce in 
Abyssinia : he relates, that for many successive mornings, at the 
commencement of the rainy monsoon, he observed a cloud, of appa- 
rently small dimension, whirling round with great rapidity, and, in a 
few minutes, the heavens became covered with dark ciouds, with con- 
sequent great rains. See note on Canto III. 1. H.9. 

2. But it is not only at the place where the air ascends, at the 
northern extremity of the rainy monsoon, and where it forms torna- 
does, as observed above by Mr. Bruce, but over a great tract of 
country, several degrees in length, in certain parts, as in the Arabian 
sea, a perpetual rain for several months descends, similar to what 
happens, for weeks together, in our own climate, in a less degree, 
during the south-west winds. Another important question presents 
Itself here: //' the climate to which th arrives ft 

not colder than that it comes from, why should it (/<,' 

•journey? If it be a c why does it come 

- above described can extend but a little 



Note 33. WINDS. 237 

way, and it is not easy to conceive that a superior cold current of air 
can mi:: with an inferior one, and thus produce showers over ten de- 
grees of country, since, at about three miles high, there is perpetual 
frost; and what can induce these narrow and shallow currents to flow 
over each other so many hundred miles ? 

Though the earth, at the northern extremity of this monsoon may 
be more heated by certain circumstances of situation than at the line, 
yet it seems probable that the intermediate country between that and 
the line may continue colder than the line (as in other parts of the 
earth), and hence, that the air coming from the line to supply this 
ascent, or destruction of air, at the northern extremity of the mon- 
soon, will be cooled all the way in its approach, and, in consequence, 
deposit its water. It seems probable, that at the northern extremity 
of this monsoon, where the tornadoes or hurricanes exist, that the 
air not only ascends, but is in part converted into water, or otherwise 
diminished in quantity, as no account is given of the existence of any 
superior currents of it. 

As the south-west winds are always attended with a light atmos- 
phere, an incipient vacancy, or a great diminution of air, must have 
taken place to the northward of them, in all parts of the earth where- 
ever they exist ; and a deposition of their moisture succeeds their 
being cooled by the climate they arrive at, and not by a contrary cur- 
rent of cold air over them, since, in that case, the barometer would 
not sink. They may thus, in our own country, be termed monsoons 
without very regular periods. 

3. Another cause of Tornadoes, independent of the monsoons, 
is ingeniously explained by Dr. Franklin : when, in the tropical coun- 
tries, a stratum of inferior air becomes so heated by its contact with 
the warm earth, that its expansion is increased more than is equiva- 
lent to the pressure of the stratum of air over it ; or when the supe- 
rior stratum becomes more condensed by cold than the inferior one 
by pressure, the upper region will descend, and the lower one ascend. 
In this situation, if one part of the atmosphere be hotter, from some 
fortuitous circumstances, or has less pressure over it, the lower 
stratum will begin to ascend at this part, and resemble water falling 
through a hole, as mentioned above. If the lower region of air was 
going forwards with considerable velocity, it will gain an eddy by 
rising up this hole in the incumbent heavy ah', so that the whirlpool, 
or tornado, has not only its progressive velocity, but its circular one 
alf.o, which thus lifts up or overturns every thing within its spiral 
whirl. By the weaker whirlwinds in this country, the trees are 
sometimes thrown down in a line of only twenty or forty yards in 
breadth, making a kind of avenue through a country. In the West- 
Indies the sea rises like a cone in the whirl, and is met by black clouds^ 



238 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part h 

produced by the cMd upper air and the warm lower air being rapidly 
mixed ; whence are produced the great and sudden rains called water- 
spouts ; while the upper and lower airs exchange their plus or minui. 
electricity in perpetual lightnings. 

LAND AND SEA BREEZES. 

The sea, being a transparent mass, is less heated at its surface by 
the sun's rays than the land, and its continual change of surface con- 
tributes to preserve a greater uniformity in the heat of the air which 
hangs over it. Hence the surface of the tropical islands is more 
heated during the day than the sea that surrounds them, and cools 
more in the night, by its greater elevation ; whence, in the after- 
noon, when the lands of the tropical islands have been much heated 
by the sun, the air over them ascends, pressed upwards by the cooler 
air of the incircling ocean ; in the morning, again, the land becoming 
cooled more than the sea, the air over it descends by its increased 
gravity, and blows over the ocean near its shores. 

CONCLUSION. 

1. There are various irregular winds besides those above described, 
which consist of horizontal or vertical eddies of air, owing to the 
inequality of the earth's surface, or the juxtaposition of the sea. 
Other irregular winds have their origin from increased evaporation 
of water, or its sudden devaporation and descent in showers ; others 
from the partial expansion and condensation of air by heat and cold ; 
by the accumulation or defect of electric fluid, or to the air's new 
production or absorption, occasioned by local causes not yet disco- 
vered. See notes VII. and XXV. 

2. There seem to exist only two original winds : one consisting of 
air brought from the north, and the other from air brought from the 
south. The former of these winds has also generally an apparent 
direction from the east, and the latter from the west, arising from 
the different velocities of the earth's surface. All the other winds 
above described are deflections or retrogressions of some parts of these 
currents of air from the north or south. 

o. One fifteenth part of the atmosphere is occasionally destroyed, 
and occasionally reproduced, by unknown causes. These causes are 
brought into immediate activity over a great part of the surface of 
thee till, at nearly the same time, but always more powerful to the 
northward than to the southward of any given place, and would hence 
Beem v.> have their principal effect in the polar circles; existing, ne- 
, though with less power, toward the tropics or at the line, 



Note 33. WINDS. 239 

For when the north-east wind blows the barometer rises, sometimes 
from 28$ inches to 301, which shows a great new generation of air 
in the north ; and when the south-west wind blows the barometer 
sinks as much, which shows a great destruction of air in the north. 
Bur as the north-east winds sometimes continue for five or six weeks, 
the newly generated air must be destroyed at those times in the war- 
mer climates to the south of us, or circulate in superior currents, 
which has been shown to be improbable from its not depositing its 
water. And as the south-west winds sometimes continue for some 
weeks, there must be a generation of air to the south at those times, 
or superior currents, which last has been shown to be improbable. 

4. The north-east winds, being generated about the poles, are 
pushed forwards towards the tropics or line, by the pressure from be- 
hind, and hence they become warmer, as explained in note VII. as 
well as by their coming into contact with a warmer part of the earth, 
which contributes to make these winds greedily absorb moisture in 
their passage. On the contrary, the south-west winds, as the atmos- 
phere is suddenly diminished in the polar regions, are drawn, as it 
were, into an incipient vacancy, and become, therefore, expanded 
in their passage, and thus generate cold, as explained in note VII. 
and are thus induced to part with their moisture, as well as by their 
contact with a colder part of the earth's surface. Add to this, that the 
difference in the sound of the north-east and south-west winds may 
depend on the former being pushed forward by a pressure behind, and 
the latter falling, as it were into a partial or incipient vacancy before; 
whence the former becomes more condensed, and the latter more 
rarefied, as it passes. There is a whistle, termed a lark-call, which 
consists of a hollow cylinder of tin-plate, closed at each end about 
half an inch in diameter, and a quarter of an inch high, with oppo- 
site hole.-, about the size of a goose- quill, through the centre of each 
end; if this brk-whistle be held between the lips, the sound of it is 
manifestly different when the breath is forcibly blown through it from, 
within outwards, and when it is sucked from without inwards. Per- 
haps this might be worthy the attention of organ builders. 

5. A stop is put to this new generation of air, when about a fif- 
teenth of the whole is produced, by its increasing pressure ; and a 
similar boundary is fixed to its absorption or destruction by the de- 
crease of atmospheric pressure. As water requires more heat to 
convert it into vapour under a heavy atmosphere than under a iight 
one, so in letting off the water from muddy fish-ponds, great quanti- 
ties of air-bubbles are seen to ascend from the bottom, which were 
previously confined there by the pressure of the water. Similar bub- 
bles of inflammable air are seen to arise from lakes in many seasons 
of the year, when the atmosphere suddenly becomes light. 

P/.rt I. 2 K 



BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

6. Tlie increased absorptions and evolutions of air must, like its 
simple expansions, depend much on the presence or absence of heat and 
light, and will hence, in respect to the times and places of its produc- 
tion and destruction, be governed by the approach or retrocession of 
the sun, and on the temperature, in regard to heat, of various lati- 
tudes, and parts of the same latitude, so well explained by Mr. Kir- 
wan. 

7. Though the immediate cause of the destruction or re-production 
of great musses of air at certain times, when the wind changes from 
north to south, or from south to north, cannot yet be ascertained; 
yet, as there appears greater difficulty in accounting for this change 
of wind from any other known causes, we may still suspect that there 
exists in the arctic and antarctic circles, a Bear or Dragon, yet 
unknown to philosophers, which, at times, suddenly drinks up, and 
as suddenly, at other times, vomits out one-fifteenth part of the at- 
mosphere ; and hope that this or some future age will learn how to 
govern and domesticate a monster which might be rendered of such 
important service to mankind. 

INSTRUMENTS* 

If, along with the usual registers of the weather, observations 
were made on the winds in many parts of the earth with the three 
following instruments, which might be constructed at no great expense, 
some useful information might be acquired. 

1. To mark the hour when the wind changes from north-east to 
south-west, and the contrary. This might be managed by making a 
communication from the vane of a weather-cock to a clock, in such 
a manner, that if the vane should revolve quite round, a tooth of its 
revolving axis should stop the clock, or put back a small bolt on the 
edge of a Avheel, revolving once in twenty-four hours. 

2. To discover whether in a year more air passed from north to 
south, or the contrary. This might be effected by placing a \\ ind- 
mill-sail of copper, about nine inches diameter, in a hollow cylinder, 
about six inches long, open at both ends, and fixed on an eminent 
situation, exactly north and south. Thence only a part of the north- 
east and south-west currents would affect the sail so as to turn it ; and 
if its revolutions were counted by an adapted machinery, as the sail 
would turn one way with the north currents of air, and the contrary 
one with the south currents, the advance of the counting finger cither 
way would show which wind had prevailed most at the end of the year, 

S. To discover the rolling cylinders of air, the vane of a weather* 
cock might be so suspended as to dip or rise vertically, as well as to 
have its horizontal rotation. 



Note 33.. WINDS, 



RECAPITULATION. 

North-east winds consist of air flowing from the novth, where 
■St seems to be occasionally produced ; has an apparent direction from 
the east, owing to its not having acquired in its journey the increasing 
velocity of the earth's surface : these winds are analogous to the trade- 
winds between the tropics, and frequently continue, in the vernal 
months, for four and six weeks together, with a high barometer, and 
fair or frosty weather. 2. They sometimes consist of south-west air, 
which had passed by us or over us, driven back by a new accumula- 
tion of air in the north. These continue but a day or two, and are 
attended with rain. See note XXV. 

South-west winds consist of air flowing from the south, and 
seeming occasionally absorbed at its arrival to the more northern lati- 
tudes. It has a real direction from the west, owing to its not having 
lost in its journey the greater velocity it had acquired from the earth's 
surface, from whence it came. These winds are analogous to the 
monsoons between the tropics, and frequently continue for four or six 
weeks together, with a low barometer, and rainy weather. 2. They 
sometimes consist of north-east air, which had passed by us or over 
us, which becomes retrograde by a commencing deficiency of air m 
the north. These winds continue but a day or two, attended with 
severe frost, with a sinking barometer ; their cold being increased by 
their expansion, as they return into an incipient vacancy. 

North-west winds consist, first, of south-west winds, which 
have passed over us, bent down, and driven back towards the south, 
by newly generated northern air. They continue but a day or two, 
and are attended with rain or clouds. 2. They consist of north-east 
winds bent down from the higher parts of the atmosphere, and having 
there acquired a greater velocity than the earth's surface, are frosty 
or fair. 3. They consist of north-east winds formed into a vertical 
spiral eddy, as on the eastern coasts of North-America, and bring 
severe frost. 

South-east winds consist, first, of north-east winds become retro- 
grade, continued for a day or two ; frosty or fair ; sinking barometer., 
2. They consist of north-east winds formed into a vertical eddy, not a 
spiral one ; frost or fair. 

North winds consist, first, of air flowing slowly from the north, 
so that they acquire the velocity of the earth's surface as they ap- 
proach ; are fair or frosty ; seldom occur. 2. They consist of retro- 
grade south winds : these continue but a day or two ; are preceded by 
south-west winds ; and are generally succeeded by north-east winds. } 
cloudy or rainy ' r barometer rising. 



BOTANIC GARDEN. p ART J. 

South winds consist, first, of air flowing slowly from the south, 
iosing their prerit as w< sterly velocity by the friction of the earth' 
surface as they approach ; moist ; seldom occur. 2. They consist of 
retrograde north winds ; these continue but a day or two ; are pre- 
ceded by north-cast winds, and generally succeeded by south-west 
winds; colder; barometer sinking. 

East winds consist of air brought hastily from the north, and 
not impelled farther southward, owing to a sudden beginning absorp- 
tion of air in the northern regions; very cold; barometer high ; gene- 
rally succeeded by south-west winds. 

West wixds consist of air brought hastily from the sooth, and 
checked from proceeding further to the north, by a beginning pro- 
duction of air in the northern regions; warm and moist; generally 
succeeded by north-east winds. 2. They consist of air bent down from 
the higher regions of the atmosphere ; if this air be from the south, 
r.nd brought hastily, it becomes a wind of great velocity, moving 
perhaps 60 miles in an hour; is warm and rainy: if it consists of 
northern air bent down, it is of less velocity and colder. 

jijtfilication of the preceding Theory to some Extracts from a Journal 
of the Weather. 

Dec. 1, 1790. The barometer sunk suddenly, and the wind, which 
had been some days north-east, with frost, changed to south-east, with 
an incessant though moderate fall of snow. A part of the northern 
air, which had passed by us I suppose, now became retrograde before 
k had acquired the velocity of the earth's surface to the south of us, 
and being attended by some of the southern air in its journey, the 
moisture of the latter became condensed and frozen by its mixture 
with the former. 

Dec. 2, o. The wind changed to north-west, and thawed the snow. 
A part of the southern air, which had passed by us or over us, with 
the retrograde northern air above described, was now in its turn 
driven back, before it had lost the velocity of the surface of the earth 
to the south of us, and, consequently, became a north-west wind; 
and not having lost the warmth it brought from the south, produced 
a thaw. 

Dec. 4, w. Wind changed to north-east, with frost and a rising 
barometer.' The air from the north continuing to blow, after it had 
driven back the southern air as above described, became a north-east 
wind, having Jess velocity than the surface of the earth in this ciimate. 
and produced frost from its coldness. 

Die. f>, 7. Wind now changed to the south-west, with incessant 
rain and a sinkii!;^ barometer. From unknown causes, I suppose the 
Quantity of uir to be diminished in the polar regions, and the southern 



Kote 23. WINDS. 243 

air cooled by the earth's surface, which was previously frozen ; de- 
posits its moisture for a day or two ; afterwards the wind continued 
south-west without rain, as the surface of the earth became warmer. 

March 18, 1785. There lias been a long frost ; a few days ago the 
barometer sunk to 29*, and the frost became more severe. Because 
the air being expanded, by a part of the pressure being taken off, 
became colder. This day the mercury rose to 30, and the frost 
ceased, the wind continuing as before, between north and east. March 
19. Mercury above 30. weather still milder, no frost, wind north- 
east. March 20. The same; for the mercury rising, shows that the 
air becomes more compressed by the weight above, and, in conse- 
quence, gives cut warmth. 

■Afiril 4, 5. Frost, wind north-east ; the wind changed in the mid. 
die of the day to the north-west, without rain, and has done so for 
three or four days, becoming again north-east at night. For the sun 
now giving greater degrees of heat, the air ascends as the sun passes 
the zenith, and is supplied below by the air on the western side, as 
well as on the eastern side of the zenith, during the hot part of the 
day ; whence, for a few hours, on the approach of the hot part of the 
day, the air acquires a westerly direction in this longitude. If the 
north-west wind had been caused by a retrograde motion of some 
southern air, which had passed over us, it would have been attended 
with rain or clouds. 

Jijtril 10. It rained all day yesterday, the wind north-west ; this 
morning there was a sharp frost. The evaporation of the moisture 
(which fell yesterday), occasioned by the continuance of the wind, 
produced so much cold as to freeze the dew. 

May 12. Frequent showers, with a current of colder wind pre- 
ceding every shower. The sinking of the rain or cloud pressed away 
the air from beneath it in its descent, which, having been for a time 
shaded from the sun by the floating cloud, became cooled in some 
degree. 

Jwie 20. The barometer sunk, the wind became south-west, and 
the whole heaven was instantly covered with clouds. A part of the 
incumbent atmosphere having vanished, as appeared by the sinking 
of the barometer, the remainder became expanded by its elasticity, 
and thence attracted some of the matter of heat from the vapour inter- 
mixed with it, and thus, in a few minutes, a total devaporation took 
place, as in exhausting the receiver of an air-pump. See note XXV. 
At the place where the air is destroyed, currents both from the north 
and south flow in to supply the deficiency (for it has been shown that 
there are no other proper winds but these two), and the mixture of 
these winds yroduces so sudden condensation of the moisture, both by 
the coldness of the northern air ajid the expansion of both cf them, 



24* BOTANIC GARDEN, Part t 

that lightning is given out, and an incipient tornado takes place i 
•whence thunder is said frequently to approach against the wind. 

jlugust 28, 1732. Barometer was at 31, and Dec. 30, in the same 
year, it was at 28 2-tenths. Medical Essays, Edinburgh, vol. ii. p 7. 
It appears from these journals that the mercury at Edinburgh varies 
sometimes nearly three inches, or one-tenth of the whole atmosphere. 
From the journals kept by the Royal Society at London, it appears 
seldom to vary more than two inches, or one-fifteenth of the whole 
atmosphere. The quantity of the variation is said still to decrease 
nearer the line, and to increase in the more northern latitudes ; which 
much confirms the idea that there exists, at certain times, a great 
destruction or production of air within the polar circle. 

July 2, 1732. The westerly winds in the journal in the Medical 
Essays, vol. ii. above referred to, are frequently marked with the 
number three, to show their greater velocity, whereas the easterly 
winds seldom approach to the number two. The greater velocity of 
the westerly winds than the easterly ones is well known, I believe, in 
every climate of the world; which may be thus explained, from the 
theory above delivered. 1. When the air is still, the higher parts of 
the atmosphere move quicker than those parts which touch the earth, 
because they are at a greater distance from the axis of motion. 2. 
The part of the atmosphere where the north or south wind comes 
from, is higher than the part of it where it comes to ; hence the more 
elevated parts of the atmosphere continue to descend towards the 
earth as either of those winds approach. 3. When southern air is 
brought to us it possesses a westerly direction also, owing to the velo- 
city it has previously acquired from the earth's surface ; and if it con- 
sists of air from the higher parts of the atmosphere descending nearer 
the earth, this westerly velocity becomes increased. But when north- 
ern air is brought to us, it possesses an apparent easterly direction 
also, owing to the velocity which it has previously acquired from the 
earth's surface being less than that of the earth's surface in this lati- 
tude : Now, if the north-east wind consists of air descending from 
higher parts of the atmosphere, this deficiency of velocity will be less. 
in consequence of the same cause, viz. the higher parts of the atmos- 
phere descending, as the wind approaches, increases the real velocity 
of the western winds, and decreases the apparent velocity of the 
eastern ones. 

October 22. Wind changed from south-east to south-west^ There 
»s a popular prognostication, that if the wind changes from the north 
towards ihc south, passing through the east, it is more likely to con- 
tinue in the south than if it passes through the west, which may be 
anted for. If the north-east wind changes to a north-west 
hows either that a part of the northern air descends upon utk 



Note 34. VEGETABLE PERSPIRATION. 245- 

in a spiral eddy, or that a superior current of southern air is driven 
back; but if a north-east wind be changed into a south-east wind, it 
shows that the northern air is become retrograde, and that in a day 
or two, as soon as that part of it has passed which has not gained the 
velocity of the earth's surface in this latitude, it will become a south 
wind for a few hours, and then a south-west wind. 

On the 5th of April, 1799, the wind, which had blown for several 
days from the N. E. and a great part of that time was very violent, 
became due E. The barometer sunk nearly an inch, clouds were 
produced, and much snow fell during the whole day ; and on the next 
day the wind became again N. E. and the barometer rose again. 
The same circumstances exactly recurred on the Sth of April ; the 
wind again changed from N. E. to due E. the barometer sunk, and 
snow and afterwards rain were the consequence. 

Which is thus to be explained. On April the 5th the atmosphere 
became lighter, I suppose, because no more air was supplied from the 
arctic circle, and the snow was produced from some of the southern 
air over this country falling down, I suppose, on the lowered current 
of northern air. But why did the N. E. wind on both these days 
change to due E ? To this it may be answered, that as no new air 
was now brought from the N. and in consequence the barometer 
sunk ; and as air from the S. evidently became mixed with that from 
the N. whence the clouds and consequent snow ; the further progress 
of the N. E. air towards the S. was stopped by the opposing air from 
the S. but its easterly direction was not stopped ; and as this only 
remained, it became due E. This idea was further countenanced, 
because the wind on both days became a few points on the southerly 
oide of the E. for an hour or two before the snow ceased. 

The writer of this imperfect sketch of anemology wishes it may 
i ncite some person of greater leisure and ability to attend to this sub- 
ject, and by comparing the various meteorological journals and ob- 
servations already published, to construct a more accurate and 
methodical treatise on this interesting branch of philosophy. 



NOTE XXX1V.—VEGETABLE PERSPIRATION. 

And wed the enamour' d Oxygene to Light. 

Canto IV. 1. 34. 

WHEN points or hairs are put into spring-water, as. in the experi- 
ments of Sir B. Thompson, (Phil. Trans. LXXVII.) and exposed to 
Hzt light ot* the sun, much air, which loosely adhered to the water, 



•246 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part 7. 

rises in bubbles, as explained in the note on Fucus, Part II. A still 
greater quantity of air, and of a purer kind, is emitted by Dr. Priest- 
ley's green matter, and by vegetable leaves growing in water in sun- 
shine, according to Mr. Ingenhouz's experiments ; both which I sus- 
pect to be owing to a decomposition of the water perspired by the 
plant ; for the edge of a capillary tube of great tenuity may be con- 
sidered as a circle of points ; and as the oxygene, or principle of vital 
air, may be expanded into a gas by the sun's light, the hydrogene, or 
inflammable air, may be detained in the pores of the vegetable. 

Hence plants growing in the shade are white, and become green by 
being exposed to the sun's light; for their natural colour being blue, 
the addition of hydrogene adds yellow to this blue, and tarn them 
green. I suppose a similar circumstance takes place in animal bodies; 
their perspirable matter, as it escapes in the sunshine, becomes de- 
composed by the edges of their pores, as in vegetables, though in less 
quantity, as their perspiration is less, and the greatest part of it, 
which exhales from the lungs, n<">t being exposed to the sunshine, and 
thus, by the hydrogene being retained, the skin becomes tannrd yel- 
low. In proof of this it must be observed, that both vegetable and 
animal substances become bleached white by the sun-beams when they 
are dead, as cabbage-stalks, bones, ivory, tallow, bees-wax, linen and 
cotton cloth ; and hence, I suppose, the copper-coloured natives of 
sunny countries might become etiolated, or blanched, by being kept 
from their infancy in the dark, or removed, for a few generations, to 
more northerly climates. 

It is probable that on a sunny morning 1 much pure air becomes sepa- 
rated from the dew, by means of the points of vegetables, on which it 
adheres, and much inflammable air imbibed by the vegetable, or com- 
bined with it ; and by the sun's light thus decomposing water, the 
effects of it in bleaching linen seems to depend (as described in note 
X.) the water is decomposed by the light at the ends or points of the 
cotton or thread, and the vital air unites with the phlogistic or colour- 
ing matters of the cloth, and produces a new acid, which is either 
itself colourless, or washes out ; at the same time the inflammable 
part of the water escapes. Hence there seems a reason why cotton 
bleaches so much sooner than linen, viz. because its fibres are three 
or tour times shorter, and therefore protrude so many more points, 
which seem to facilitate the liberation of the vital air from the inflam- 
mable part of the water. 

ax becomes bleached by exposure to the sun and dews, in a 
similar manner as metals become calcined or rusty, viz. by til 
>:i their surface being decomposed; and hence the inflammable crfa- 
terial, which caused the colour, becomes united with 
' iway, 



Kote 34. VEGETABLE PERSPIRATION. 247 

Oil, close stopped in a phial not fail, and exposed long to the sun's 
light, becomes bleached, as, I suppose, by the decomposition of the 
water it contains ; the inflammab'e air rising above the surface, and 
the vital air uniting with the colouring matter of the oil. For it is 
remarkable, that by shutting up a phial of b'eached oil in a dark 
drawer, it, in a little time, becomes coloured again. 

The following experiment shows the power of light in separating 
vital air from another basis, viz. from azote. Mr. Scheele inverted 
a glass vessel, filled with colourless nitrous acid, into another g'ass, 
containing the same acid, and, on exposing them to the sun's light, 
the inverted glass became partly filled with pure air, and the acid, at 
the same time, became coloured. Scheele, in Crell's Annal. 1786. 
But if the vessel of colourless nitrous acid be quite full, and stopped, 
so that no space is left for the air produced to expand itself into, no 
change of colour takes place. Priestley's Exp. VI. p. 344. See 
Keir's very excellent Chemical Dictionary, p. 99, new edition. 

A sun-flower, three feet and a half high, according to the experi- 
ment of Dr. Hales, perspired two pints in one day (Vegetable Statics), 
which is many times as much, in proportion to its surface, as is per- 
spired from the surface and lungs of animal bodies : it follows, that 
the vital air liberated from the surfaces of plants by the sunshine, 
must much exceed the quantity of it absorbed by their respiration, and 
that hence they improve the air in which they live during the light 
part of the day ; and thus blanched vegetables will sooner become 
tanned into green by the sun's light, than etiolated animal bodies will 
become tanned yellow by the same means. 

It is hence evident, that the curious discovery of Dr. Priestley, 
that his green vegetable matter, and other aquatic plants, gave out 
vital air when the sun shone upon them, and the leaves of other plants 
did the same when immersed in water, as observed by Mr. Ingen= 
houz, refer to the perspiration of vegetables, not to their respiration. 
Because Dr. Priestley observed the pure air to come from both sides 
of the leaves, and even from the stalks of a water-flag ; whereas one 
side of the leaf only serves the office of lungs, and certainly not the 
stalks. Exper. on Air, vol. iii. And thus, in respect to the circum- 
stance in which plants and animals seemed the farthest removed from 
each other, I mean in their supposed mode of respiration, by which 
one was believed to purify the air which the other had injured, they 
seem to differ only in degree, and the analogy between them remains 
unbroken. 

Plants are said, by many writers, to grow much faster in the night 
than in the day, as is particularly observable in seedlings, at their 
rising out of the ground. This probably is a consequence of their 
sleep rather than of the absence of light j and in this, I suppose ; they ( 
also resemble animal bodies. 

Fart I. 2 L, 



( 248 ) 



NOTE XXXV.— VEGETABLE PLACENTATION. 

While in bright veins the silvery Safi ascends. 

Canto IV. 1. 431. 

AS buds are the vivipai-ous offspring of vegetables, it becomes 
necessary that they should be furnished with placental vessels for their 
nourishment, till they acquire lungs, or leaves, for the purpose of 
elaborating the common juices of the earth into nutriment. These 
vessels exist in bulbs and in seeds, and supply the young plant with a 
sweet juice, till it acquires leaves, as is seen in converting barley into 
malt, and appears from the sweet taste of onions and potatoes when 
they begin to grow. 

The placental vessels belonging to the buds of trees are placed 
about the roots of most, as the vine ; so many roots are furnished with 
sweet or mealy matter, as fern-root, bryony, carrot, turnip, potatoe, 
or in the alburnum, or sap-wood, as in those trees which produce 
manna, which is deposited about the month of August, or in the joints 
of sugar-cane and grasses : early in the spring the absorbent mouths 
of these vessels drink up moisture from the earth, with a saccharine 
matter lodged for that purpose during the preceding autumn, and 
push this nutritive fluid up the vessels of the alburnum, to every indi- 
vidual bud, as is evinced by the experiments of Dr. Hales, and of 
Mr. Walker, in the Edinb. Philosophical Transactions. The former 
observed, that the sap from the stump of a vine, which he had cut off 
in the beginning of April, arose twent3 r -one feet high, in tubes affixed 
to it for that purpose ; but in a few weeks it ceased to bleed at all, and 
Dr. Walker marked the progress of the ascending sap, and found 
likewise, that as soon as the leaves became expanded, the sap ceased 
to rise : the ascending juice of some trees is so copious and so sweet 
during the sap season, that it is used to make wine, as the birch) 
betula, and sycamore, acer pseudo-platanus, and particularly the 
palm, and maple acer. 

During this ascent of the sap-juice, each individual leaf-bud expands 
its new leaves, and shoots down new roots, covering, by their inUr- 
texture, the old bark with a new one; and as soon as these new roots 
(or bark) arc capable of absorbing sufficient juices from the earth for 
the support of each bud, and the new leaves are capable of perform- 
ing their office of exposing these juices to the influence of the air, the 
placental vessels cease to act, coalesce, and are transformed from 
sap-wood, or alburnum, into inert wood, serving only for the support 
of the new tree, which grows over them. 

Thus, from the pith of the new bud of the horse-chesnut five vessels 



Note 35. VEGETABLE PLACENTATION, -249 

pass out through the circle of the placental vessels above described, 
and carry with them a minuter circle of those vessels ; these five bun- 
dles of vessels unite after their exit, and form the foot-stalk or petiole 
of the new five-fingered leaf, to be spoken of hereafter. This struc- 
ture is well seen by cutting off a leaf of the horse-chesnut (iEsculus 
Hippocastanum) in September, before it falls, as the buds of this tree 
are so large that the flower may be seen in them with the naked eye. 

After a time, perhaps about midsummer, another bundle of vessels 
passes from the pith through the alburnum, or sap-vessels, in the 
bosom of each leaf, and unites, by the new bark, with the leaf, which 
becomes either a flower-bud or a leaf-bud, to be expanded in the ensu- 
ing spring ; for which purpose an apparatus of placental vessels are 
produced, with proper nutriment, during the progress of the summer 
and autumn ; and thus the vegetable becomes annually increased, ten 
thousand buds often existing on one tree, according to the estimate of 
Linnrous. Phil. Bot. 

The vascular connection of vegetable buds with the leaves in whose 
bosoms they are formed, is confirmed by the following experiment. 
(Oct. 20, 1781.) On the extremity of a young bud of the Mimosa 
(sensitive plant) a small drop of acid of vitriol was put, by means of 
a pen, and, after a few seconds, the leaf in whose axilla it dwelt 
closed, and opened no more, though the drop of vitriolic acid was so 
small as apparently only to injure the summit of the bud. Does not 
this seem to show that the leaf and its bud have connecting vessels, 
though they arise at different times, and from different parts of the 
medulla, or pith ? And, as it exists previously to it, that the leaf is 
the parent of the bud ? Or did the acid destroy both the parent bud 
and its fcetus ? 

This placentation of vegetable buds is clearly evinced from the 
sweetness of the rising sap, and from its ceasing to rise as soon as the 
leaves are expanded, and thus completes the analogy between buds 
and bulbs. Nor need we wonder at the length of the umbilical cords, 
of buds, since that must correspond with their situation on the tree, in 
the same manner as their lymphatics and arteries are proportionally 
elongated. 

Since the above was first printed, I have thought that these sap- 
vessels, which bleed so much on being wounded in the vernal months, 
ought rather to be called umbilical than placental vessels ; as they 
supply the young bud with nutrition ; whereas the placenta of the 
animal foetus is a respiratory organ, as shown in Zoonomia, vol. i. 
sect. 38. 



.50 ) 



NOTE XXXVI.— VEGETABLE CIRCULATION 

And refluent blood in milky eddies bends. 

Canto IV. 1. 432. 

THE individuality of vegetable buds was spoken of before, and is 
confirmed by tbe method of raising all kinds of trees, by Mr. Barnes- 
(Method of propagating Fruit Trees. 1759. Lond. Baldwin.) He 
cut a branch into as many piece- as there were buds or leaves upon it, 
and wiping the two wounded ends dry. he quickly applied to each a 
cement, previously warmed a little, which consisted principally of 
pitch, and planted them in the earth. The use of this cement 1 sup- 
pose to consist in its preventing the bud from bleeding to death, though 
the author ascribes it to its antiseptic quality. 

These buds of plants, which are thus each an individual vegetable, 
in many circumstances resemble individual animals; but as animal 
bodies are detached from the earth, and move from place to place in 
search of food and take that \'nn(\ at considerable intervals of time, 
and prepare it for their nourishment within their own bodies after it is 
taken, it is evident (hey must require many organs and powers which 
are not necessary to a stationary bud. As vegetables are immoveably 
fixed to the soil from whence they draw their nourishment ready pre- 
pared, and this uniformly, not at returning intervals, it follows, that 
in examining their anatome, we are not to look for muscles of locomo* 
tion, as arms and legs ; nor for organs to receive and prepare their 
nourishment, as a stomach and bowels ; nor for a reservoir for it after 
it is prepared, as a general system of veins, which, in locomotive 
animals, contains and returns the superfluous blood which is left after 
the various organs of secretion have been supplied, by which contri- 
vance they are enabled to live a long time without new supplies of 
food. 

The parts which we may expect to find in the anatome of vegetables, 
correspondent to those in the animal economy, are, 1. A system ui 
absorbent vessels, to imbibe the moisture of the earth similar to the 
lacteal vessels, as in the roots of plants ; and another system of ab- 
sorbents, similar to the lymphatics of animal bodies, opening its 
mouths on the internal cells and external surfaces of vegetables; and 
a third system of absorbent vessels, correspondent with those of the 
placentalion of the animal foetus. 2. A pulmonary system, 
pondent to the lungs or gills of quadrupeds and lish, by which the fluid 
absorbed by the lacteals and lymphatics may be exposed to the influ- 
ence of the air ; this is done by the green leaves of plants, those in the 
JUT resembling lungs, ard those in the water resembling gills ; and by 



Bote 56. VEGETABLE CIRCULATION. 25} 

the pet:ils of flowers. 3. Arterial systems to convey the fluid thus 
elaborated to the various glands of the vegetable, for the purposes of 
its growth, nutrition, and various secretions. 4. The various glands 
which separate from the vegetable blood the honey, wax, gum, resin, 
starch, sugar, essential oil, Sec. 5. The organs adapted for their 
propagation or reproduction. 6. Muscles to perform several motions 
©f their parts. 

I. The existence of that branch of the absorbent vessels of vegeta- 
bles which resembles the lacteals of animal bodies, and imbibes their 
nutriment from the moist earth, is evinced by their growth so long as 
moisture is applied to their roots, and their quickly withering when 
it is withdrawn. 

Besides these absorbents in the roots of plants there are others, 
■which open their mouths on the external surfaces of the bark and leaves, 
and on the internal surfaces of all the cells, and between the bark and 
the alburnum, or sap-wood; the existence of these is shown, because 
a leaf plucked off, and laid with its under side on water, will not 
■wither so soon as if left in the dry air, — the same if the bark alone of 
a branch which is separated from a tree be kept moist with water,— 
and, lastly, bv moistening the alburnum or sap-wood alone of a branch 
detached from a tree, it will not so soon wither as if left in the dry- 
air. By the following experiment these vessels were agreeably visible 
by a common magnifying glass : I placed, in the summer of 1781, the 
foot-stalks of some large fig-leaves, about an inch deep, in a decoction 
of madder (rubia tinctorum) and others in a decoction of logwood 
(hsematoxylum campechense), along with some sprigs cut off from a 
plant of picris ; these plants were chosen because their blood is white ; 
after some hours, and on the next day, on taking out either of these, 
and cutting off from its bottom about a quarter of an inch of the stalk, 
an internal circle of red points appeared, which were the ends of ab- 
sorbent vessels, coloured red with the decoction, while an external 
ring of arteries was seen to bleed out hastily a milky juice, and, at 
once, evinced both the absorbent and arterial system. These absor- 
bent vesse's have been called by Grew, and Malpighi, and some other 
philosophers, bronchi, and erroneously supposed to be air-vessels. 
It is probable that these vessels, when cut through, may effuse their 
fluids, and receive air, their sides being too stiff to collapse ; since 
dry wood emits air-bubbles in the exhausted receiver in the same 
manner as moist wood. 

The structure of these vegetable absorbents consists of a spiral line, 
and not of a vessel interrupted with valves like the animal lymphatics, 
since on breaking almost any tender leaf, and drawing out some of the 
fibres, which adhere longest, this spiral structure becomes visible, 



25i: BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

even to the naked eye, and distinctly so by the use of a common lens. 
See Grew, plate 51. 

In such a structure it is easy to conceive how a vermicular or peris- 
taltic motion of the vessel, beginning at the lowest part of it, each 
spiral ring successively contracting itself till it fiUs up the tube, must 
forcibly push forwards its contents, as from the roots of vines in the 
bleeding season ; and if this vermicular motion should begin at the 
upper end of the vessel, it is as easy to see how it must carry its con- 
tained fluid in a contrary direction. The retrograde motion of the 
vegetable absorbent vessels is shown, by cutting a forked branch from 
a tree, and immersing a part of one of the forks in water, which will, 
for many days, prevent the other from withering ; or, it is shown by 
planting a willow branch with the wrong end upwards. This struc- 
ture, in some degree, obtains in the oesophagus, or throat of cows, 
who, by similar means, convey their food first downwards, and af- 
terward upwards, by a retrograde motion of the annular muscles, or 
cartilages, for the purpose of a second mastication of it. 

II. The fluids thus drank up by the vegetable absorbent vessels from 
the earth, or from the atmosphere, or from their own cells and inter- 
stices, are carried to the foot-stalk of every leaf, where the absorbents 
belonging to each leaf unite into branches, forming so many pulmo- 
nary arteries, and are thence dispersed to the extremities of the leaf, 
as may be seen in cutting away, slice after slice, the foot-stalk of a 
horse-chesnut in September, before the leaf falls. There is then a 
complete circulation in the leaf; a pulmonary vein receiving the biood 
from the extremities of each artery, on the upper side of the leaf, and 
joining again in the foot-stalk of the leaf, these veins produce so many 
arteries or aortas, which disperse the new blood over the new bark, 
elongating its vessels, or producing its secretions ; but as a reservoir 
of blood could not be wanted by a vegetable bud which takes in its nu- 
triment at all times, I imagine there is no venous system, no veins, 
properly so called, which receive the blood which was to spare, and 
return it into the pulmonary or arterial system. 

The want of a system of veins was countenanced by the following 
experiment: I cut off several stems of tall spurge (Euphorbia helios- 
oopia) in autumn, about the centre of the plant, and observed tenfold 
the quantity of milky juice ooze from the upper than from the lower 
extremity, which could hardly have happened if there had been a 
venous system of vessels to return the blood from the roots to the 
leaves. 

Thus the vegetable circulation, complete in the lungs, but, probably 
in the other part of the system deficient, in respect to a system of 
returning veins, is carried forwards without a heart, like the circuLiT 



Note 36. VEGETABLE CIRCULATION. 253 

tion through the livers of animals, where the blood brought from the 
intestines and mesentery by one vein is dispersed through the liver by 
the vena portarum, which assumes the office of an artery. See note 
XXXVII. 

At the same time so minute are the vessels in the intertexture of 
the barks of plants, which belong to each individual bud, that a gene- 
ral circulation may possibly exist, though we have not yet been able 
to discover the venous part of it. 

Since the above opinion was first published, I have again attended 
to this subject, and now think that the greater discharge of the milky 
blood from the upper part of the plant, than from the lower part, 
might be rationally ascribed to the descending arteries of the stem 
bleeding more rapidly and more copiously than the ascending veins. 
And yesterday, September 28, 1798, a cupful of decoction of madder, 
rubia tinctorum, was carried into the garden, and placed near a plant 
of tragopogon latifolium, or scorzonera, which was then in flower; a 
large stem of the plant was then cut asunder, and the growing end 
was bent down and immersed an inch or two in the coloured decoction, 
along with the lower end of the top, or part cut ofF. After about a 
minute they were taken out and inspected by a common lens, when 
an internal circle of red points was visible in both of them, with an 
external circle of vessels, which continued to effuse white blood ; 
though this effusion was slower from the root-end than from the sum- 
mit-end, from whence I conclude, that the arteries of the root-end 
had ceased to act, and that the returning veins continued to bleed ; 
and on the contrary, that the veins of the summit part had ceased to 
act, and that the descending arteries continued to bleed. And, lastly, 
that the circle of red points in both of them were the mouths of the 
absorbent system, which continued to act in both directions. And I 
was thus induced to believe the existence of a venous system corres- 
ponding to the arterial one in the barks or roots of plants, as well as 
in their leaves and petals. 

There is, however, another part of the circulation of vegetable 
juices visible to the naked eye, and that is in the corol or petals of 
flowers, in which a part of the blood of the plant is exposed to the in- 
fluence of the air and light in the same manner as in the foliage, as 
will be mentioned more at large in notes XXXVII. and XXXIX. 

These circulations of their respective fluids seem to be carried on in 
the vessels of plants precisely as in animal bodies, by their irritability to 
the stimulus of their adapted fluids, and not by any mechanical or che- 
mical attraction ; for their absorbent vessels propel the juice upwards, 
which they drink up from the earth, with great violence ; I suppose 
with much greater than is exerted by the lacteals of animals, probably 
owing to the greater minuteness of these vessels iu vegetables, and the 



BOTANIC GARDEN. Part!. 

greater rigidity of their coats. Dr. Hales, in the spring season, cut 
off a vine near the ground, and, by fixing tubes on the remaining 
Rtump of it, found the sap to rise twenty-one feet in the tube, bv the 
propulsive power of these absorbents of the roots of it. Veget. Stat. 
p. 102. Such a power cannot be produced by capillary attraction, as 
that could only raise a fluid nearly to the upper edge of the attracting 
cylinder, but not enable it to flow over that edge, and much less to rise 
21 feet above it. What then can this power be owing to ? Doubtless 
to the living activity of the absorbent vessels, and to their increased 
vivacity, from the influence of the warmth of the spring succeeding 
the winter's cold, and their thence greater suscsptibility to irritation 
from the juices which they absorb, resembling, in all circumstances, 
the action of the living vessels of animals. 



NOTE XXXVII.— VEGETABLE RESPIRATION. 

While, spread in air, the leaves rehiring play. 

Caxto IV. 1.453. 

I. THERE have been various opinions concerning the use of the 
leaves of plants in the vegetable economy. Some have contended that 
they are perspiratory organs ; this does not seem probable from an 
experiment of Dr. Hales. Veget. Stat. p. 30. He found, by cutting 
off branches of trees with apples on them, and taking off the leaves, 
that an apple exhaled about as much as two leaves, the surfaces of 
which were nearly equal to the apple ; whence it would appear that 
apples have as good a claim to be termed perspiratory organs as 
leaves. Others have believed them excretory organs of excrcmenti- 
.ious juices; but as the vapour exhaled from vegetables has no taste, 
this idea is no more probable than the other ; add to this, that in 
moist weather they do not appear to perspire or exhale at all. 

The internal surface of the lungs or air-vessels in men, is said to 
be equal to the external surface of the whole body, or about fifteen 
3quare feet : on this surface the blood is exposed to the influence of the 
respired air, through the medium, however, of a thin pellicle; by 
this exposure to the air it has its colour changed from deep red to 
bright scarlet, and acquires something so necessary to the existence 
of lite, that we can live scarcely u minute without this wonderful 
process. 

The analogy between the leaves of plants and the lungs or gills of 
ftflhnals s< em i to embrace so many circumstances, that we can scarcely 
with!- performing similar offices. 



Note 17. VEGETABLE RESPIRATION. 255 

1. The great surface of the leaves, compared to that of the trunk 
and hninches of trees, is such, that it would seem to be an organ well 
adapted for the purpose of exposing the vegetable juices to the influ- 
ence of the air ; this, however, we shall see afterwards, is probably 
performed only by their upper surfaces ; yet even in this case the sur- 
face of the haves, in general, bears a greater proportion to the sur- 
face of the tree than the lungs of animals to their external surfaces. 

2. -In the lungs of animals, the blood, after having been exposed to 
the air in the extremities of the pulmonary artery, is changed in co- 
lour from deep red to bright scarlet, and certainly in some of its es- 
sential properties, it is then collected by the pulmonary vein, and re- 
turned to the heart. To show a similarity of circumstances in the 

: plants, the following experiment was made, June 24, 1781. 
A 9ta&, with leaves and seed-vessels, of large spurge (Euphorbia 
several days placed in a decoction of madder 
(Rubia tinctorum), so that the lower part of the stem, and two of the 
undermost leaves were immersed in it. After having washed the im- 
mersed leaves in clear water, I cculd readily discern the colour of the 
jmadder passing along the middle rib of each leaf. This red artery 
was beautifully visible both on the under and upper surface of the 
leaf; but on the upper side many red branches were seen going from 
it to the extremities of the leaf, which, on the other side, were not 
visible, except bv looking through it against the light. On this under 
bide a system of branching vessels, carrying a pale milky fluid, were 
seen coming from the extremities of the leaf, and covering the whole 
under side of it, and joining into two large veins, one on each side of 
the red artery, in the middle rib of the leaf, and along with it, descend- 
ing to the foot-stalk or petiole. On slitting one of these leaves with 
scissars, and having a common magnifying lens ready, the milky 
blood was seen oozing out of the returning veins on each side of the 
red artery, in the middle-reb, but none of the red fluid from the artery. 
All these appearances were more easily seen in a leaf of picris 
treated in the same manner; for in this milky plant, the stems and 
middle rib of the leaves are sometimes naturally coloured reddish, and 
hence the colour of the madder seemed to pass further into the rami- 
fications of their leaf-arteries, and was there beautifully visible, with 
the returning branches of milky veins on each side. 

3. From these experiments, the upper surface of the leaf appeared 
to be the immediate organ of respiration, because the coloured fluid 
was carried to the extremities of the leaf by vessels most conspicuous 
on the upper surface, and there changed into a milky fluid, which is 
the blood of the plant, and then returned, by concomitant veins, on 
■-.he under surface, which were seen to ooze when divided with scis- 

P^rtJ. 2M 



2St> BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

5ars, and which, in picris particularly, render the under surface of 
the leaves greatly whiter than the upper one. 

4. As the upper surface of leaves constitute? the organ of re-pira* 
tion, on which the sap is exposed, in the terminations of ar'.eries, 
beneath a thin pellicle, to the action of the atmosphere. th< EC sur- 
faces, in many plants, strongly repel moisture, as eabbagi 
whence the particles of rain lying over their surfaces without touch- 
ing them, as observed by Mr. Melville (Essays Literary and Phi- 
losoph. Edinburgh), have the appearance of globules of quick-si ver. 
And hence leaves, laid with the upper surfaces on water, wither as 
soon as in the dry air, but continue green many days if placed with 
the under surfaces on water, as appears in the experiments of Mons. 
Bonnet (Usage des Feuilles). Hence Borne aquatic plants, as the 
water-lily (Nymphcea), have the lower sides of their 'eaves floating 
on the water, while the upper surfaces remain dry in the air. 

5. As those insects which have many spiracula, or breathing aper- 
tures, as wasps and flies, are immediately suffocated by pouring oil 
upon them, I carefully covered with oil the surfaces of several leaves 
of Phlomis, of Portugal Laurel, and Balsams; and though it would 
not regularly adhere, I found them all die in ? day or two. 

Of aquatic leaves, see note on Trapa and on Fucus, in Part II. to 
which must be added, that many leaves are furnished with muscles 
about tin ir foot-stalks, to turn their upper surfaces to the air or light, 
as Mimosa and Hedysarum gyrans. From all these analogies, I think 
there can be no doubt but that leaves of trees are their lungs, giving 
out a phlogistic material to the atmosphere, and absorbing oxygene or 
vital air. 

6. The great use of light to vegetation would appear, from this 
theory, to be, by disengaging vital air from the water which they per* 
spire, and thence to facilitate its union with their blood, exposed be- 
neath the thin surface of their leaves ; since, when pure air is thus 
applied, it is probable that it can be more readily absorbed. Hence, 
in the curious experiments of Dr. Priestley and Mr. Ingenhouz, some 
plants purified air less than others, that is, they perspired less in the 
sunshine ; and Mr. Scheele found, that bv putting peas into water 
which about half covered them, they converted the vital air into fixed 
air, or cabonic acid gas, in the same manner as in animal respiration. 
See note XXXIV. 

7. The circulation in the lungs or leaves of plants is very similar to 
that of fish. In fish, the blood, after having passed through their 
gills, does not return to the heart, as from the lungs of air-breathing 
animals; but the pulmonary vein, taking the structure of an artery , 
after having received the blood from the gills, which there gains ■ 



Note ST. VEGETABLE RESPIRATION. 257 

more florid colour, distributes it to the other parts of their bodies. 
The same structure occurs in the livers of fish, whence we see, in 
those animals, two circulations independent of the power of the heart, 
viz. that beginning at the termination of the veins of the gills, and 
branching through the muscles, and that which passes through the 
liver ; both which are carried on by the action of those respective 
arteries and veins. Monro's Physiology of Fish, p. 19. 

The course of the fluids in the roots, leaves, and buds of vegetables 
seems to be performed in a manner similar to both these. First, the 
absorbent vessels of the roots and surfaces unite at the foot-stalk of 
the leaf, ami then, like the vena portarum, an artery commences 
without the intervention of a heart, and spreads the sap, in its nu- 
merous ramifications, on the upper surface of the leaf : here it changes 
its colour and properties, and becomes vegetable blood ; and is again 
collected by a pulmonary vein on the under surface of the leaf. This 
vein, like that which receives the blood from the gills of fish, as- 
sumes the office and name of an artery, and, branching again, dis- 
perses the blood upward to the bud, from the foot-stalk of the leaf, 
and downward to the roots, where it is all expended in the various 
secretions, the nourishment and growth of the plant, as fast as it is 
prepared. 

'II. The organ of respiration already spoken of belongs particularly 
to the shoots or buds ; but there is another pulmonary system, per- 
haps totally independent of the green foliage, which belongs to the 
fructification only ; I mean the corol or petals. In this there is an 
artery belonging to each petal,- which conveys the vegetable blood to 
its extremities, exposing it to the light and air under a delicate mem- 
brane, covering the internal surface of the petal, where it often 
changes its colour, as is beautifully seen in some party-coloured pop- 
pies ; though it is probable some of the iridescent colours of flowers 
may be owing to the different degrees of tenuity of the exterior mem- 
brane of the leaf, refracting the light like soap-bubbles ; the vegetable 
blood is then returned by correspondent vegetable veins, exactly as in 
the green foliage, for the purposes of the important secretions of 
honey, wax, the finer essential oil, and the prolific dust of the anthers* 

1. The vascular structure of the corol, as above described, and 
which is visible to the naked eye, and its exposing the vegetable juices 
to the air and light during the day, evince that it is a pulmonary 
organ. 

2. As the glands which produce the prolific dust of the anthers, 
f-he honey, wax, and frequently some odoriferous essential oil, are ge- 
nerally attached to the corol, and always fall off, and perish with it, 
it is evident that the blood is elaborated or oxygenated in this pulmc- 
nary system, for the purpose of these important secretions. 



m BOTANIC GARDEN. Part i. 

'. y flowers, as tlic Colchf urn. and Hamamelis, ar' : - 
Iri autumn, no green leaves appearing till t: log; and 

many others put forth their flowers, and complete th 
early in the spring, before the green foliage Mezereon, 

cherries, pears, which shows that these corols are the lungs belonging 
to the fructification. 

4. This organ does not seem to have been necessary for the 
of the stamens and pistils, since the calyx of many flowers, : 

pogon, performs this office ; and, in many flowers, these petals them- 
selves are so tender as to require being shut up in the calyx during the 
night; for -what other use then can such an apparatus of vessels be 
designed ? 

5. In the Helleborus nigcr, Christmas-rose, after the seeds are grown 
o a certain size, the nectaries and stamens drop off, and the beauti- 
ful large white petals change their colour to a deep green, and grada- 
ally thus become a calyx, enclosing and defending the ripertin 
hence it would seem that the white vessels of the corol served the of- 
fice of exposing the blood to the action of the air, for the purposes of 
separating or producing the honey, wax, and prolific dust ; and when 

re no longer wanted, that these vs.- I like the 

placental vessels of animals after their birth, and thus ceased to per- 
form that office, and lost, at the same time, their fthite dol< uv. Win 
should they lose their white colour, unless they, at the s;me time, lost 
. nr.e other property besides that Of defending die sec 
they sill continue to defend ? 

6. From these observations I am led to doubt whether green leave.-, 
be absolutely necessary to the progress of the fruit-hud, aft< i 
year's leaves are fallen off. The green leaves serve as hmj 
shoots, and foster the new bnds in their bosoms, whether these buds 
be leaf-buds or fruit-buds ; but, in th< • the fruit-buds 
expand their covols, which arc their lungs, und seem no Ion I 

quire green leave*: hence the vine I 

cut a leaf-bud at another joint without fruit. 
>ut of the earth, in V. 
from the Colchicum, are for the purpose of producing the I 
and its placenta, attd not for the giving maturity to th 

6Y gooseberry tr< i n of in- 

sects, the fruit continues to be 

7. V; m these facts Tt appears, that theflower-bu . 
fills off (whit h is its lungs), atld the 

growing 

■ 

th to the foot," 



Note 38. VEGETABLE IMPREGNATION. 259 

and which there changes into an artery, for the purpose of distribut- 
ing the sap for the secretion of the saccharine, or farinaceous, or aces- 
cent materials, for the use of the embryon. At the same time, as all 
the vessels of the different buds of trees inosculate or communicate 
with each other, the fruit becomes sweeter and larger when the green 
leaves continue on the tree, but the mature flowers themselves (the 
succeeding fruit not considered), perhaps suffer little injury from the 
green leaves being taken off, as some florists have observed. 

8. That the vessels of different vegetable buds inosculate in various 
parts of their circulation, is rendered probable by the increased growth 
of one bud, when others in its vicinity are cut away ; as it thus seems 
to receive the nourishment which was before divided amongst many. 



NOTE XXXVIII.— VEGETABLE IMPREGNATION. 

$ 

Love out his footer, and leave his life in air. 

Canto IV. I. 472. 

FROM the accurate experiments and observations of Spallanzani s 
it appears, that in the Spartium Junceum, rush-broom, the very mi- 
nute seeds were discerned in the pod at least twenty days before the 
flower is in full bloom, that is, twenty days before fecundation. At 
this time also the powder of the anthers was visible, but glued fast to 
their summits. The seeds, however, at this time, and for ten days 
after the blossom had fallen off, appeared to consist of a gelatinous 
substance. On the eleventh day after the falling of the blossom, the 
seeds became heart-shaped, with the basis attached by an appendage 
to the pod, and a white point at the apex : this white point was, on 
pressure, found to be a cavity including a drop of liquor. 

On the 25th day, the cavity, which at first appeared at the apex, 
was much enlarged, and still full of liquor ; it &K-> contained a very 
Kmall semi-transparent body, of a yellowish colour, gelatinous, and 
fixed by its two opposite ends to the sides of the cavity. 

In a month the seed was much enlarged, and its shape changed 
from a heart to a kidney ; the little body contained in the cavity was 
increased in bulk, and was less transparent and gelatinous, but there 
yet appeared no organization. 

On the 40th day, the cavity, now grown larger, was quite filled 

with the body, which was covered with a thin membrane : after this 

membrane was removed, the body appeared of a bright green, and 

•• divided, by the point of a needle- into two portions, which. 



^CO BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I, 

manifestly formed the two lobes, and within these, attached to the 
lower part, the exceedingly small plantule was easily perceived. 

The fo reg oin g observations evince, 1. That the seeds exist in the 
Ovarium many days before fecundation. 2. That they remain for 
some time solid, and then a cavity, containing a liquid, is formed in 
them. .". That after fecundation a body begins to appear within the 
cavity, fixed by two points to the sides, which, in process of time, 
proves to be two lobes containing a plantule. 4. That the ripe seed 
consists of two lobes adhering to a plantule, and surrounded by a thin 
membrane, which is itself covered with a husk or cuticle. Spallan- 
cani's Dissertations, vol. ii. p. ?53. 

The analogy between seeds and eggs has long been observed, and is 
confirmed by the mode of their production. The egg is known to be 
formed within the hen long before its impregnation. C. F. Wolf 
asserts, that the yolk of the egg is nourished by the vessels of the 
mother, and that it has from those its arterial and venous branches, 
but that after impregnation these vessels gradually become impervious 
and obliterated, and that new ones are produced from the foetus, and 
dispersed into the yolk. Haller's Physiology, torn. viii. p. 94. The 
young seed, after fecundation, I suppose, is nourished in a similar 
manner, from the gelatinous liquor, which is previously deposited for 
that purpose ; the uterus of the plant producing or secreting it into a 
reservoir or amnios, in which the embryon is lodged, and that the 
young embrvon is furnished with vessels to absorb a part of it, as in 
the very early embryon in the animal uterus. 

The spawn of frogs and of fish is delivered from the female before 
its impregnation. M. Bonnet says, that the male salamander darts 
his semen into the water, where it forms a little whitish cloud, which 
is afterwards received by the swoln anus of the female, and she is 
fecundated. He adds, that marine plants approach near to these 
animals, as the male does not project a fine powder, but a liquor, 
■which, in like manner, forms a little cloud in the water. And further 
adds, who knows but the powder of the stamina of certain pi. 'ins may 
make some impression on certain germs belonging to the animal king- 
dom ! Letter XLIII. to Sp&llanzani, Qeuvres Philos. 

Spallanzani found that the seminal fluid of frogs and doc;?, even 
when diluted with much water, retained its prolific quality. Whether 
this quality be simply a stimulus exciting the egg into animal action, 
which may be called a vivifying principle, or whether part of it be 
conjoined with the egg, is not yet determined, though the lat- 
ter si-ems more probablei from the frequent resemblance of the foetnt 
to the male parent. A conjunction, however, of both the male and 
female influence seems necessary for the purpose i 



Note 39. VEGETABLE GLANDULATION. 363 

throughout all organized nature, as well in hermaphrodite insect?, 
microscopic animals, and polypi, and exists as well in the formation 
of the buds of vegetables as in the production of their seeds, which 
is ingeniously conceived and explained by Linnxus. After having 
compared the flower to the lava of a butterfly, consisting of petals in- 
stead of wing.s, calyxes instead of wing-sheaths, with the organs of 
reproduction; and having shown the use of the farina in fecundating 
the egg or seed, he proceeds to explain the production of the bud. 
The calyx of a flower, he says, is an expansion of the outer bark ; 
the petals proceed from the inner bark or rind, the stamens from 
the alburnum or woody circle, and the style from the pith. In the 
production and impregnation of the seed, a commixture of the secre- 
tions of the stamens and style are necessary ; and for the production 
of a bud, he thinks the medulla or pith bursts its integuments, and 
mixes with the woody part or alburnum, and these, forcing their pas~ 
sage through the rind and bark, constitute the bud or viviparous pro- 
geny of the vegetable. System of Vegetables translated from Linnseus-j 
page 8. 

It has been supposed that the embryon vegetable, after fecundation, 
by its living activity, or stimulus exerted on the vessels of the parent 
plant, may produce the fruit or seed-lobes, as the animal fetus pro- 
duces its placenta, and as vegetable buds may be supposed to produce 
their umbilical vessels or roots, down the bark of the tree. This, in 
respect to the production of the fruit surrounding the seeds of trees, 
has been assimilated to the gall-nuts on oak-leaves, and to the bede- 
guar on briars ; but there is a powerful objection to this doctrine, viz. 
that the fruit of figs, all which are female in this country, grow nearly 
as large without fecundation, and, therefore, the embryon has in theua 
no self-living principle. 



NOTE XXXIX VEGETABLE GLANDULATION. 

Seeks, where fine fiores their dulcet balm distil. 

Canto IV. 1.533. 

THE glands of vegetables, which separate from their blood the 
mucilage, starch, or sugar, for the placentation or support of their 
seeds, bulbs, and buds ; or those which deposit their bitter, acrid, or 
narcotic juices for their defence from depredations of insects or larger 
animals ; or those which secrete resins or wax for their protection 
from moisture or frosts, consist of vessels too fine for the injection 
or absorption of coloured fluids, and have not, therefore, yet been 



?S2 BOTANIC G \RDEN. Part L 

exhibited to the inspection even of our glasses, and can, therefore, 
only be known by their effects ; but one of the most curious and im- 
portant of all vegetable secretions, that of honey, is apparent to our 
naked eyes, though, before the discoveries of Linnjcus, the nectar)-, 
■r boney gland, had not even acquired a name. 

The odoriferous essential oils of several (lowers seem to have been 
designed for their defence against the depredations of insc 
their beautiful colours were a necessary consequence of the size of the 
particles of their blood, or of the tenuity of the exterior men. 
the petal. The use of.the prolific dust is now well ascertained ; the 
ttich covers the anthers prevents this dust from receiving 
moisture, which would make it burst prematurely, and thence pre- 
vent its application to the stigma, as sometimes happens in moist 
years, and is the cause cf deficient fecundation, both of our fields and 
orchards. 

The universality of the production of honey in the vegetable world, 
and the very complicated apparatus which nature has constructed in 
many flowers, as well as the acrid or deleterious juices she has fur- 
nished those flowers with (as in the Aconite) to protect this honey from 
vain, and from the depredations of insects, seem to imply that this 
fluid is of very great importance in the vegetable economy ; and also, 
that it was necessary to expose it to the open air previous to its re- 
absorption into the vegetable vessels. 

In the animal system the lachrymal gland separates its fluid into 
the open air, for the purpose of moistening the eye ; of this fluid, the 
part which does not exhaie is absorbed by the puncta lachrymalia, 
and carried into the nostrils; but as this is not a nutritive fluid, the 
ana-logy goes no further than its secretion into the open air, and its 
re- absorption into the system ; every other secreted fluid in the animal 
body is in part absorbed again into the system ; even those which are 
esteemed excrementitious, as the urine and perspirable matter, of 
which the latter is secreted, like the honey, into the external air. 
That the honey is a nutritious fluid, perhaps the most so of any vegeta- 
ble production, appears from its great similarity to sugar, and from 
its affording sustenance to such numbers of insects, which live upon it 
solely during summer, and lay it up for their winter provision. These 
proofs of its nutritive nature evince the necessity of its re-absorption 
into the vegetable system, for some useful purpose. 

This purpose, however, has, as yet, escaped the researches of 
philosophical botanists. M. Pentedera believes it designed to hibri- 
cate the vegetable uterus, and compares the horn-like nectaries of 
some flowers to the appendiele of the cecum intestinum of animals* 
(Antholog. p. 49.) Others have supposed, that the honey, when re- 
serve the purpose of the liq 



Kote 39. VEGETABLE GL.VNDULATION. 36S 

the egg, as a nutriment for the young embryon, or fecundated seed, 
in its early state of existence. But as the nectary is found equally 
general in male flowers as in female ones ; and as the young embryon, 
or seed, grows before the petals and nectary are expanded, and after 
they fall off; and, thirdly, as the nectary so soon falls off after the 
fecundation of the pistillum ; these seem to be insurmountable objec- 
tions to both the above-mentioned opinions. 

In this state of uncertainty, conjecture-, may be of use so far as they 
lead to further experiment and investigation. In many tribes of in- 
sects, as the silk-worm, and, perhaps, in all the moths and butter- 
flies, the male and female parents die as soon as the eggs are impreg- 
nated and excluded ; the eggs remaining to be perfected and hatched 
at some future time. The same thine; happens in regard to the male 
and female parts of flowers; the anthers and filaments, which con- 
stitute the male parts of the flower, and the stigma and style, which 
constitute the sensitive or amatorial organ of the female part of the 
flower, fall off and die as soon as the seeds are impregnated, and 
along with these the petals and nectary. Now, the moths and but- 
terflies above-mentioned, as soon as they acquire the passion and the 
apparatus for the reproduction of their species, lose the power of feed- 
ing iipdn leaves as they did before, and become nourished by what?— 
by honey alone. 

Hence we acquire a strong analogy for the use of the nectary, or 
secretion of honey in the vegetable economy, which is, that the male 
parts of flowers, and the female parts, as soon as they leave their 
foetus-state, expanding their petals (which constitute their lungs), be- 
come sensible to the passion, and gain the apparatus for the reproduc- 
tion of their species, and are fed and nourished with honey, like the 
insects above described ; and that hence the nectary begins its office 
ef producing honey, and dies, or ceases to produce honey, at the same 
time with the birth and death of the stamens and the pisti's ; whichj 
■whether existing in the same or in different flowers, are separate and 
distinct animated beings. 

Previous to this time, the anthers with their filaments, and the 
Stigmas with their stv'es, are, in their fastus-state, sustained by their 
placental vessels, like the unexpanded leaf-bud, with the seeds exisU 
ing in the vegetable womb, yet unimpregnated, and the dust, yet un- 
ripe, in the cells of the anthers. After this period they expand their 
petals, which have been shown above to constitute the lungs of the 
flower; the placental vessels, which before nourished the anthers and 
the stigmas, coalesce, or cease to nourish them ; and they now acquire 
blood more oxygenated bv the air, obtain the passion and power of re- 
production, are sensible to heat, and cold, and moisture, and to me- 
chanic stimulus, and become, in reality, insects fed with Uoney, simi? 

Part I. 2 N 



BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

tar in every respect, except their being attached to the tree on which 
'.hey were produced. 

Some experiments I have made this summer by cutting out the nec- 
taries of several flowers of the aconites, before the petals were open* 
or had become much coloured : some of these flowers, near the sum- 
mit of the plants, produced no seeds; others, lower down, produced 
seeds; but they were not sufficiently guarded from the f.irina of the 
flowers in their vicinity; nor have I had opportunity to try if these 
seeds would vegetate. 

I am acquainted with a philosopher, who, contemplating this sub- 
ject, thinks it not impossible, that the first insects were the anthers 
'->r stigmas of flowers ; which had, for some means, loosed themselves 
from their parent plant, like the male flowers of Vallisneria ; and that 
many other insects have gradually, in long process of time, been 
formed from these ; some acquiring wings, others fins, and others 
claws, from their ceaseless efforts to procure their food, or to secure 
1hemselve3 from injury. He contends, that none of these changes are 
more incomprehensible than the transformation of tadpoles into frogs, 
and caterpillars into butterflies. 

There are parts of animal bodies which do not require oxygenated 
blood for the purpose of their secretions, as the liver, which, for the 
production of bile, takes its blood from the mesenteric veins, after it 
must have lost the whole or a great part of its oxygenation, which it 
had acquired in its passage through the lungs. In like manner the 
pericrtrpium, or womb of the flower, continues to secrete its proper 
juices for the present nourishment of the newly animated embryon- 
seed; and the saccharide, acescent, or starchy matter of the fruit or 
seed-lobes, for its future growth, in the same manner as these things 
went on before fecundation ; that is, without any circulation of juices 
in the petals, or production of honey in the nectary ; these having pe- 
rished and fallen off, with the male and female apparatus for impreg- 
nation. 

It is probable that the depredations of insects on this nutritious fluid 
must be injurious to the products of vegetation, and would be much 
more so, but that the plants have either acquired means to defend 
their honey in part, or have learned to make more than is absolutely 
sary for their own economy. In the same manner the honey- 
dew on trees is very injurious to them ; in which disease the nutritive 
fluid, the vegetable sap-juice, seems to be exuded by a retrograde 
motion of the cutaneous lymphatics, as in the sweating sickness of the 
last century. To prevent the depredation of insects on honey, a 
wealthy man in Italy is said to have poisoned his neighboui 
perhaps by mixing arsenic with honey, against which there is a most 
flowery declamation in Quintilian, No. XIII. A; the use ofth 



Note 39. VEGETABLE GLANDULATION. 9ft 

is to preserve the dust of the anthers from moisture, which would 
prematurely burst them, the bees which collect this for the construc- 
tion of the combs or cells, must, on this account, also injure the 
vegetation of a country where they too much abound. 

It is not easy to conjecture whv it was necessary that this secretion 
of honey should be exposed to the open air in the nectary, or honey- 
cup, for which purpose so great an apparatus for its defence from 
insects and from showers became necessary. This difficulty increases 
when we recollect that the sugar in the joints of grass, in the sugar- 
cane, and m the roots of beets, and in ripe fruits, is produced with- 
out exposure to the air. — On supposition of its serving for nutriment 
to the anthers and stigmas, it may thus acquire greater oxygenation, 
for the purpose of producing greater powers of sensibility, according 
to a doctrine lately advanced by a French philosopher, who has en- 
deavoured to show, that the oxygene, or base of vital air, is the con- 
stituent principle of our power of sensibility. 

So caterpillars are fed upon the common juices of vegetables found 
in their leaves, till they acquire the organs of reproduction, and then 
they feed on honey ; all, I believe, except the silk-worm, which, in 
this country, takes no nourishment afcer it becomes a butterfly. Thus 
also the maggot of the bee, according to the observations of Mr. 
Hunter, is fed with raw vegetable matter, called bee-bread, which is 
collected from the anthers of flowers, and laid up in cells for that 
purpose, till the maggot becomes a winged bee, acquires greater sen- 
sibility, and is fed with honey. Phil, Trans. 1792. See Zoonomiaj 
sect. XIII. on vegetable animation. 

From this provision of honey for the male and female parts of 
Rowers, and from the provision of sugar, starch, oil, and mucilage, in 
the fruits, seed-cotyledons, roots, and buds of plants, laid up for the 
nutriment of the expanding fetus, not only a very numerous class of 
insects, but a great part of the larger animals procure their food, and 
thus enjoy life and pleasure without producing pain to others ; for 
these seeds or eggs, with the nutriment laid up in them, are not yet 
endued with sensitive life. 

The secretions from various vegetable glands, hardened in the air, 
produce gums, resins, and various kinds of saccharine, saponaceous, 
and wax-like substances, as the gum of cherry or plumb trees, gum 
tragacanth from the astragalus tragacantha, camphor from the laurus 
camphora, elemi from amyris elemifera, aneme from hymencea cour- 
baril, turpentine from pistacia terebinthus, balsam of Mecca from 
the buds of amyris opobalsamum, branches of which are placed in 
the temples of the East, on account of their fragrance ; the wood is 
called xylobalsamum, and the fruit carpobalsamum ; aloe from a 
plant of the s.amc name, myrrh from a plant not vet described ; th/n 



BOTANIC GARDEN. Fart J. 

remarkably elastic resin is brought into Europe principally in the 
iorm of flasks which look like black leather, and are wonderfully 
elastic, and not penetrable by water; rectified ether dissolves it; its 
flexibility is increased by warmth, and destroyed by cold ; the tree 
which yields this juice is the jatropha elastics; it grows in Guaiasa 
and the neighbouring tracts of America ; its juice is sail to resemble 
wax, in becoming soft by heat, but that it acquires no elasticity till 
that property is communicated to it by a secret art, after which it is 
poured into moulds, and well dried, and can no longer be rendered, 
fluid bv heat. — Mr. de la Borde, physician at Cayenne, has given this 
account. Manna is obtained at Naples from the fraxinus ornus, or 
manna-ash ; it partly issues spontaneously, which is preferred, and 
parti) exudes from -wounds made purposely in the month of August; 
many other plants yield manna more sparingly. Sugar is properly 
made from the saccharum officinale, or sugar-cane, but is found in 
the roots of beet and many other plants. American wax is obtained 
from the myrica cerifera, candlcberry myrtle ; the berries are boiled 
in water, and a green wax separates; with luke-warm water, the 
•wax is yellow: the seeds of croton sehiferum are lodged in tallow: 
there are many other vegetable exudations used in the varit us arts 
pf dyeing, varnishing, tanning, lacquering, and which supply the shop 
of the druggist with medicines and with poisons. 

There is another analogy, which would seem to associate plants 
with animals, and which, perhaps, belongs to this note on Glandula- 
tion ; I mean the similarity of their digestive powers. In the roots 
of growing vegetables, as in the process of making malt, the farina- 
ceous part of the seed is converted into sugar by the vegetable power 
ef digestion, in the same manner as the farinaceous matter of seeds is 
converted into sweet chyle by the animal digestion. The sap-juice 
which rises in the vernal months from the roots of trees, through the 
alburnum, or sap-wood, owes its sweetness, 1 suppose, to a similar 
digestive power of the absorbent system of the young buds. This 
exists in many vegetables in great abundance, as in vines, sycamore, 
birch, and most abundantly in the palm-tree (Isert's Voyage to 
Guinea), and seems to be a similar fluid in all plants, as chyle is simi- 
lar in all animals. 

Hence, as the digested food of vegetables, consists principally of 
sugar, and from that is produced again their mucilage, starch, and 
oil) and since animals are sustained by these vegetable productions, it 
would seem, that the sugar-making process carried on in ■ 
yess< Is was the great source of life to all organized beings. And that, 
$f our improved chemistry should ever discover the ar( of making 
SUgaT from fossile or aerial matter, without the assistance < 
Vjon, food for animals would then become as plentiful as v..: 



$*ote 39. VEGETABLE QLANDULATION. 

mankind might live upon the earth as thick as blades of grass, with 
no restraint to their numbers but the want of local room. 

It would seem, that roots fixed in the earth, and leaves, innumer- 
able, waving in the air, were necessary for the decomposition of wa- 
ter, and the conversion ot it into saccharine matter, which would have 
been not only cumberous, but totally incompatible with the locomotion 
of animal bodies. For how could a man or quadruped have carried on 
his head or back a forest of leaves, or have had long branching lac- 
teal or absorbent vessels terminating in the earth ? Animals, there- 
fore, subsist on vegetables ; that is, they take the matter so far pre- 
pared, and have organs to prepare it further for the purposes of higher 
animation, and greater sensibility. In the same manner the appara- 
tus of green leaves and long roots were found inconvenient for the 
more animated and sensitive parts of vegetable flowers; I mean the 
anthers and stigmas, which are, therefore, separate beings, endued 
with the passion and power of reproduction, with lungs of their own, 
and fed with honey, a food ready prepared by the long roots and green 
leaves of the plant, and presented to their absorbent mouths. 

From this outline, a philosopher may catch a glimpse of the gene- 
ral economy of nature; and, like the mariner cast upon an unknown 
shore, who rejoiced when he saw the print of a human foot upon thg 
sand, he may cry out with rapture, " A God dwells here." 



( 268 ) 

VISIT of HOPE 

TO 

SIDNEY COVE, 

NEAR 

BOTANY-BAY. 

Referred to in Canto II. 1. 317. 



WHERE Sidney Cove her lucid bosom swells, 

And with wide arms the indignant storm repels j 

High on a rock, amid the troubled air, 

Hope stood 6ublime, and waved her golden hair ; 

Calm'd with her rosy smile the tossing deep, 

And with sweet accents charm 'd the winds to sleep j 

To each wild plain she stretch'd her snowy hand, 

High-waving wood, and sea-encircled strand. 

" Hear me," she cried, '< ye rising realms ! record 

" Time's opening scenes, and Truth's prophetic word. 

u There shall broad streets their stately walls extend, 

" The circus widen, and the crescent bend ; 

** There, ray'd from cities o'er the cultured land, 

" Shall bright canals, and solid roads expand— 

« There the proud arch, colossus-like, bestride 

il Yon glittering streams, and bound the chafing tide ; 

" Embellish'd villas crown the landscape-scene, 

" Farms wave with gold, and orchards blush between — 

" There shall tall spires, and dome-capt towers ascend, 

** And piers and quays their massy structures blend ; 

", While with each breeze approaching vessels glide, 

" And northern treasures dance on every tide !'* 

Then ceased the nymph — tumultuous echoes roar, 

And Joy's loud voice was heard from shore to shore — 

Her graceful steps, descending, press'd the plain. 

And Peace, and Art, and Labour, join'd her train. 

Mr. Wedgwood, having been favoured by Sir Joseph Banks with 
a specimen of clay from Sidney Cove, has made a few medallions of 
it, representing Hope encouraging Art and Labour, under the in- 
fluence of Peace, to pursue the employments necessary for rendering 
an infant colony secure and happy. The above verses were written 
by the author of the Botanic Garden, to accompany these medalliouj. 



THE 

ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. 



CONTENTS 

OF THE 

ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

Note I. — Meteors. 

1 HERE are four strata of the atmosphere, and four kinds of meteors. 1. 
Lightning is electric, exists in visible clouds, its short course, and red light. 
2. Shooting stars exist in visible vapour, without sound, white light, have no 
luminous trains. 3. Twilight ; fire-balls move thirty miles in a second, and 
are about sixty miles high ; have luminous trains, occasioned by an electric 
spark passing between the aerial and inflammable strata of the atmosphere,, 
and mixing them and setting them on fire in its passage; attracted by volcanic 
eruptions ; one thousand miles through such a medium resists less than the 
tenth of an inch of glass. 4 Northern lights not attracted to a point, but 
diffused ; their colours ; passage of electric fire in vacuo dubious ; Dr. Frank- 
lin's theory of northern lights countenanced in part by the supposition of a 
superior atmosphere of inflammable air ; antiquity of their appearances; de» 
scribed in Maccabees. 

Note II. — Primary Colours. 
The rainbow was in part understood before Sir Isaac Newton ; the seven 
colours were discovered by him ; Mr. Galton's experiments on colours ; man* 
ganese and lead produce colourless glass. 

Note III. — Coloured Clouds. 
The rays refracted by the convexity of the atmosphere ; the particles of 
air and of water are blue ; shadow by means of a candle in the day ; halo 
found the moon in a fog; bright spot in the cornea of the eye ; light from 
cat's eyes in the dark, from a horse's eyes in a cavern, coloured by the 
choroid coat within the eye. 

Note IV. — Comets. 
Tails of comets from rarified vapour, like northern lights, from electri- 
city ; twenty millions of miles long ; expected comet - r 72 comets already de* 
scribed. 



270 BOTANIC GARDEN". p ART f, 

. r. V.— Sun's Rays. 
Dispute about phlogiston; the sun the fountain from whence all phlo* 
giston is derived ; i;s rays not luminous till they arrive at our atmosphere ; 
light owing to their combustion with air, whence an unknown acid ; the sun 
is on fire only on its surface j the dark spots on it are excavations through iti 
luminous crust. 

Note VI. — Central Fires. 
Sun's heat much less than that from the nre at the earth's centre; sun's 
heat penetrates but a few feet in summer ; some mines are warm ; warm 
springs owing to subterraneous fhe ; situations of vokanos on high moun- 
tains; original nucleus of the earth; deep vallies of the ocean; distant per- 
ception of earthquakes ; great attraction of mountains; variation of the 
compass ; countenance the existence of a cavity or fluid lava within the earth. 

Note VII. — Elementary Heat. 
Combined and sensible heat; chemical combinations attract heat, solu- 
tions reject heat ; ice cools boiling water six times as much as cold water cools 
it ; cold produced by evaporation ; heat by devaporation ; capacities of bodies 
in respect to heat. 1. Existence of the matter of heat shown from the me- 
chanical condensation and rarefaction of air, from the steam produced in ex- 
hausting a receiver, snow from rarified air, cold from discharging an air-gun> 
heat from vibration or friction. 2. Matter of heat analogous to the electric 
fluid in many circumstances, explains many chemical phenomena. 

Note VIII. — Memnon's Lyre. 
Mechanical impulse of light dubious ; a glass tube laid horizontally be- 
fore a fire revolves ; pulse-glass suspended on a centre ; black leather contracts 
in the sunshine ; Memnon's statue broken by Cambyses. 

Note IX. — Luminous Insects. 
Eighteen species of glow-worm, their light owirg to their respiration 
in transparent lungs; Acudia of Surinam gives light enough to read and 
draw by ; use of its light to the insect ; luminous sea-insects adhere to the skin 
of those who bathe in the ports of Languedoc ; the light may arise from 
putrescent slime. 

Note X.— Phosphorus. 
Discovered by Kunkcl, Brandt, and Boyle; produced in respiration, 
and by luminous insects, decayed wood, and calcined shells ; bleaching a slov.' 
combustion in which the water is decomposed ; rancidity of animal fat owing 1 
Co the decomposition of water on its surface ; aerated marine acid does not 
whiten ox bleach the hand. 

Note XI. — S team-Engine. 
Hero of Alexandria Brat applied steam to machinery, n*xt a French writer 
m 1630, the Marquis of Woxcestej in 1655, Capt, Savoy in 16S9, Newco- 



CONTENTS OF ADDITIONAL NOTES. 271 

faien and Cawley added the piston ; the improvements of Watt and Boulton ; 
power of one of their large engines equal to two hundred horses. 

Note XII —Frost. 
Expansion of water in freezing; injury done by vernal frosts; fish, eggs, 
seeds, resist congelation ; animals do not resist the increase of heat ; frosts do 
not meliorate the ground, nor are, in general, salubrious; damp air produces 
cold on the skin by evaporation ; snow less pernicious to agriculture than 
heavy rains, for two reasons. 

Note XIII. — Electricity. 

1. Points preferable to knobs for defence of buildings ; why points emit the 

electric fluid; diffusion of oil on water; mountains are points on the earth's 

globe ; do they produce ascending currents of air ? 2. Fairy-rings explained ; 

advantage of paring and burning ground. 

Note XIV. — Buds and Bulbs. 
A tree is a swarm of individual plants; vegetables are either oviparous 
or viviparous ; are all annual productions like many kinds of insects; hyber- 
nacula ; a new bark annually produced over the old one, in trees and in some 
herbaceous plants, whence their roots seem end-bitten ; all bulbous roots perish 
annually ; experiment on a tulip-root ; both the leaf-bulbs and the flower-bulbs 
are annually renewed. 

Note XV. — Solar Volcanos. 
The spots in the sun are cavities, some of them four thousand miles deep, 
and many times as broad ; internal parts of the sun are not in a state of com- 
bustion ; volcar.os visible in the sun ; all the planets together are less than 
one six hundred and fiftieth part of the sun ; planets were ejected from the 
sun by volcanos ; many reasons showing the probability of this hypothesis ; 
Mr. BufFon's hypothesis, that planets were struck off from the sun by comets ; 
why no new planets are ejected from the sun ; some comets, and the Georgium 
Sidus, may be of later date; sun's matter decreased ; Mr. Ludlam's opinion, 
that it is possible the moon might be projected from the earth. 

Note XVI. — Calcareous Earth. 

High mountains and deep mines replete with shells ; the earth's nucleus 
covered with lime-stone ; animals convert water into lime-stone ; all the cal- 
careous earth in the world formed in animal and vegetable bodies ; solid parts 
of the earth increase ; the water decreases ; tops of calcareous mountains 
dissolved ; whence spar, marbles, chalk, stalactites ; whence alabaster, fluor, 
flint, granulated lime-stone, from solution of their angles, and by attrition ; 
tupha deposited on moss ; lime-stones from shells with animals in them ; liver- 
stone from fresh-water muscles; calcareous earth from land-animals and 
vegetables, as marl ; beds of marble softened py fire ; whence Bath-Stone 
contains lime as well as lime-stone. 

Part I SO 



IC GARDEN. Part I. 

Note XVII.— Morasses. 

The production of morasses from fallen woods; account by the Earl Cro- 
martie of a new morass ; morasses lose their salts by solution in water ; then 
their iron ; their vegetable acid is converted into marine, nitrous, and vitriolic 
acid-; whence gypsum, alum, sulphur; into fluor-acid, whence fluor; into 
siliceous acid, whence flint, the sand of the sea, and other strata of siliceous 
sand and marl ; some morasses ferment like new hay, and, subliming their 
phlogistic part, form coal-beds above and clay below, which are also produced 
by elutriation ; shell-fish in some morasses, hence shells sometimes found on 
coals, and over iron-stone. 

Note XVIII.— Iron. 
Calciform ores; combustion of iron in vital air; steel from deprivation 
of vital air; welding; hardness; britdeness like Rupert's drops; specific 
levity ; hardness and brittleness compared ; steel tempered by its colours ; 
modern production of iron, manganese, calamy ; septaria of iron-stone ejected 
from volcanos ; red-hot cannon-balls. 



Note XIX.— Flint. 
1. Siliceous rods from morasses ; their cements. 2. Siliceous trees ,■ coloured 
by iron or manganese; Peak-diamonds; Bristol-stones; flint in form of cal- 
careous spar; has been fluid without much heat; obtained from powdered 
quartz and fluor-acid by Bergman and by Achard. 3. Agates and onyxes 
found in sand-rocks ; of vegetable origin ; have been in complete fusion ; 
their concentric coloured circles not from superinduction, but from congela- 
tion ; experiment of freezing a solution of the blue-vitriol; iron and manga- 
nese repelled in spheres, as the nodule of flint cooled ; circular stains of marl 
in salt-mines; some flint nodules resemble knots of wood or roots. 4. Sand 
of the sea; its acid from morasses; its base from shells. 5. Ckert cr petrosilex 
stratified in cooling; their colour and their acid from sea-animals; Labradore- 
stone from mother-pearl. 6. Flints in cbalk-beJs; their form, colour, and 
acid, from the flesh of sea-animals ; some are hollow, and lined with crystals ; 
contain iron ; not produced by injection from without ; coralloids converted 
to flint ; French mill-stones ; flints sometimes found in solid strata. "• Angles 
of sand destroyed by attrition and solution in steam; siliceous breccia ce- 
mented by solution in red-hot water. S. Basaltes and granites are ancient 
lavas ; basaltes raised by its congelation, not by subterraneous fire. 

Note XX.— Clay. 
Fire and water two great agents ; stratification from precipitation; many 
stratified materials not soluble in water. 1. Stratification of lava from suc- 
cessive accumulation. 2. Stratifications of lime-stone from the different 
periods of time in which the shells were deposited. 3. Stratifications of coal, 
and clay, and sand-stone, and irou-ores, not from currents of water, but 
from the production of morass-beds, at different periods of time ; morass 

beds become ignited ; their bitumen and sulphur is sublimed, the clay, limi 



CONTENTS OF ADDITIONAL NOTES. 273 

and iron, remain ; whence sand, marl, coal, white clay in valleys, and gravel- 
beds, and some ochres, and some calcareous depositions, owing to alluvia- 
tion ; clay from decomposed granite ; from the lava of Vesuvius ; from vitre- 
ous lavas. 

Note XXI. — Enamels. 
Rose-colour and purple from gold ; precipitates of gold by alkaline salt 
preferable to those by tin ; aurum fulminans long ground ; tender colours 
from gold or iron not dissolved, but suspended in the glass ; cobalts ; calces 
of cobalt and copper require a strong fire ; Ka-o-lin and Pe-tun-tse the same 
as our own materials. 

Note XXII. — Portland Vase. 
Its figures do not allude to private history ; they represent a part of the 
Eleusinian mysteries ; marriage of Cupid and Psyche ; procession of torches; 
the figures in one compartment represent Mortal Life in the act of ex- 
piring, and Humankind attending to her with concern; Adam and Eve 
hieroglyphic figures ; Abel and Cain other hieroglyphic figures : on the other 
compartment is represented Immortal Life ; the Manes, or Ghost, de- 
scending into Elysium, is led on by Divine Love, and received by Immor- 
tal Life, and conducted to Pluto; Trees of Life and Knowledge are 
emblematical ; the figure at the bottom is of Atis, the first great Hierophant, 
pr teacher of mysteries. 

Note XXIII.— Coal. 
1. A fountain of fossile tar in Shropshire; has been distilled from the 
coal-beds beneath, and condensed in the cavities of a sand-rock; the coal be- 
neath is deprived of its bitumen in part; bitumen sublimed at Matlock, into 
cavities lined with spar. 2. Coal has been exposed to heat ; woody fibres 
and vegetable seeds in coal at Bovey and Polesworth ; upper part of coal-beds 
more bituminous at Beaudesert; thin stratum of asphaltum near Caulk; 
upper part of coal-bed worse at Alfreton ; upper stratum of no value at 
"IViddrington ; alum at West-Hallum ; at Bilston. 3. Coal at Colebrook- 
Dale has been immersed in the sea, shown by sea-shells ; marks of violence 
in the colliery at Mendip and at Ticknal ; lead-ore and spar in coal-beds ; 
gravel over coal near Lichfield; coal produced from morasses, shown by fern- 
leaves, and bog-shells, and muscle-shells ; by some parts of coal being still 
woody ; from Loch Neigh, and Bovey, and the Temple of the Devil ; fixed 
alkali ; oil. 

Note XXIV.— Granite. 
Granite the lowest stratum of the earth yet known; porphyry, trap, 
rnoor-stone, whin-stone, slate, basaltes, all volcanic productions dissolved in 
red-hot water ; volcanos in granite strata ; differ from the heat of morasses 
from fermentation ; the nucleus of the earth ejected from the sun ; was the 
sun originally a planet ? supposed section of the globe. 



274 BOTANIC CAH Past I 

Note XXV.— Evapot 
I. 1. Solution of water in air; in the matter of heat; pulie-glass. 2 
Heat is the principal causs of evaporation ; thermometer cooled by evapora- 
tion of ether; heat given from steam to the worm-tub ; warmth accompany- 
ing rain. 3. Steam condensed on the eduction of heat; moisture on cold 
vails; south-west and north-east winds. 4. Solution of salt and of blue 
vitriol in the matter of heat. II. Other vapours may precipitate steam and 
form rain. 1. Cold the principal cause of devaporation ; hence the steam 
dissolved in heat is precipitated, but that dissolved in air remains even in 
frosts; south-west wind. 2. North-east winds mixing with south-west winds 
produce rain ; because the cold particles of air from the north-east acquire 
seme of the matter of heat from the south-west winds. 3. Devaporation 
from mechanical expansion of air, as in the receiver of an air-pump ; sum- 
mer clouds appear and vanish ; when the barometer sinks without change of 
wind the weather becomes colder. 4. Solution of water in electric fluid du- 
bious. 5. Barometer sinks from the lessened gravity of the air, and from the 
rain having less pressure as it falls; a mixture of a solution of water in calo- 
irique, with an aerial solution of water, is lighter than dry air; breath of 
animals in cold weather, why condensed into visible vapour and dissolved 
again. 

Note XXVI.— Springs. 
Lowest strata of the earth appear on the highest hills ; springs from 
dews sliding between them ; mountains are colder than plains ; 1. From 
their being insulated in the air; 2. From their enlarged surface ; 3. From the 
rarity of the air it becomes a better conductor of heat ; 4. By the air on 
mountains being mechanically rarefied as it ascends; 5. Gravitation of the 
matter of heat ; 6. The dashing of clouds against hills; of fogs against trees; 
springs stronger in hot days with cold nights ; streams from subterranean 
caverns; from beneath the snow on the Alps. 

Note XXVII.— Shell-Fish. 
The armour of the Echinus moveable ; holds itself in storms to stones, by 
1200 or 2000 strings; Nautilus rows and sails; renders its shell buoyant: 
Pinna and cancer; Byssus of the ancients was the beard of the Pinna ; as 
fine as the silk is spun by the silk-worm; gloves made of it; the beard of 
muscles produces sickness ; Indian-weed ; tendons of rats' tails. 

Note XXVIII.— Stuhgeox. 

Sturgeon's mouth like a purse; without teeth ; tendrils lik-e worms hang 

icfore his lips, which entice small fish and sea-insects, mistaking them for 

worms; his skin used for covering carriages; isinglass made from it ; caviare 

spawn. 



CONTENTS OF ADDITIONAL NOTES. 575 

Note XXIX.— Oil on Water. 

Oil and water do not touch; a second drop of oil will not diffuse itself on 

the preceding pne; hence it st.lls the waves; divers for pearl c?rry oil in 

their mouths; oil on water produces prismatic colours; oiled cork circulates 

on water; a phial of oil and water made to oscillate. 

Note XXX.— Ship-Worm. 
The Teredo has calcareous jaws; a new enemy; they perish when they 
meet together in their ligneous canals ; United Provinces alarmed for the 
piles of the banks of Zealand ; were destroyed by a severe winter. 

Note XXXI.— Maelstrom. 

A whirlpool on the coast of Norway ; passes through a subterraneous 

cavity; less violent when the tide is up ; eddies become hollow in the middle; 

heavy bodies are thrown out by eddies ; light ones retained ; oil and water 

whirled in a phial; hurricanes explained. 

Note XXXII.— Glaciers. 

Snow in contact with the earth is in a state of thaw; ice-houses; rivers 

from beneath the snow; rime, in spring vanishes by its contact with the 

<=arth ; and snow by its evaporation and contact with the earth ; moss vege. 

tates beneath the snow; and Alpine plants perish at Upsal for want of 



Note XXXIII.— Winds. 

Air is perpetually subject to increase and to diminution ; oxygene is per- 
petually produced from vegetables in the sunshine, and from clouds in the 
light, and from water ; azote is perpetually produced from animal and vegeta- 
ble putrefaction, or combustion ; from springs of water; volatile alkali ; fixed 
alkali; sea-water; they are both perpetually diminished by their contact with 
the soil, producing nitre ; oxygene is diminished in the production of all 
acids ; azote by the growth of animal bodies ; charcoal in burning consumes 
double its weight of pure air ; every barrel of red-lead absorbs 2000 cubic 
feet of vital air ; a';r obtained from variety of substances by Dr. Priestley ; 
oflicina aeris in the polar circle, and at the line. Soutfo-<west winds; then- 
westerly direction from the less velocity of the earth's surface; the contrary 
in respect to north-east winds ; south-west winds consist of reg'ons of air 
from the south, and north-east winds of regions of air from the north; 
when the south-west prevails for weeks, and the barometer sinks to 28, what 
becomes of above one fifteenth part of the atmosphere ? 1. It is not carried 
back by superior currents; 2. Not from its loss of moisture; 3. Not carried 
over the pole ; 4. Not owing to atmospheric tides or mountains; 5. It is ab- 
sorbed at the polar circle; hence south-west winds and rain; south-west 
sometimes cold. North-east winds consist of air from the north ; cold by the 
evaporation of ice ; are dry winds; 1. Not supplied by superior currents ; 2 



•J76 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I. 

The whole atmosphere increased in quantity by air set at liberty from its 
combinations in the polar circles. Soutb-cast •winds consist of north winds 
driven back. Nortb-viest winch consist of south-west winds driven back; 
north-west winds of America bring frost ; owing to a vertical spiral eddy of 
air between the eastern coast and the Apalachian mountains; hence the 
greater cold of North-America. Trade-winds ; air over the line always hotter 
than at the tropics ; trade-winds gain their easterly direction from the greater 
velocity of the earth's surface at the line ; not supplied by superior currents; 
supplied by decomposed water in the sun's great light; 1. Because there are 
no constant rains in the track of the trade-winds ; 2. Because there is no con- 
densible vapour above three or four miles high at the line. Monsoons and 
tornadoes ; some places at the tropic become warmer when the sun is vertical 
than at the line ; hence the air ascends, supplied on one side by the north-east 
winds, and on the other by the south-west ; whence an ascending eddy or tor- 
nado, raising water from the sea, or sand from the desert, and incessant rains; 
air diminished to the northward produces south-west winds ; tornadoes from 
heavier air above sinking through lighter air below, which rises through a 
perforation ; hence trees are thrown down in a narrow line of twenty or forty 
yards broad; the sea rises like a cone, with great rain and lightning. Land 
and sea-breezes ,■ sea less heated than land; tropical islands more heated in the 
day than the sea, and are cooled more in the night. Conclusion; irregular 
winds from other causes ; only two original winds, north and south; dilfer- 
ent sounds of north-east and south-west winds ; a Bear or Dragon in the 
arctic circle that swallows at times, and disembogues again, above one fif- 
teenth part of the atmosphere; wind-instruments; recapitulation. 

Note XXXIV. — Vegetable Perspiration. 
Pr.rc air from Dr. Priestley's vegetable matter, and from vegetable leaves, 
owing to decomposition of water ; the hydrogene retained by the vegetables ; 
plants in the shade are tanned green by the sun's light; animal skins are 
tanned yellow by the retention of hydrogene ; much pure air from dew on a 
sunny morning; bleaching, why sooner performed on cotton than linen; 
bees-wax bleached ; metals calcined by decomposition of water ; oil bleached 
in the light becomes yellow again in the dark ; nitrous acid coloured by being 
exposed to the sun; vegetables perspire more than animals, hence in the sun- 
shine they purify air more by their perspiration than they injure it by theiv 
respiration ; they grow fastest in their sleep. 

Note XXXV. — Vegetable Placektatiojj. 
Buds the viviparous offspring of vegetables ; placcntation in bulbs and 
seeds ; placcntation of buds in the roots, hence the rising of sap in the spi ing. 
as in vines, birch, which ceases as soon as the leaves expand; production of 
the leaf of Horsc-chesnut, and of its new bud; oil of vitriol on the bud of 
Mimosa killed the leaf also ; placcntation shown from the sweetness of thtj 
umbilical artery \n vegetables. 



CONTENTS OF ADDITIONAL NOTES. 277 

Note XXXVI. — Vegetable Circulation. 
Buds set in the ground will grow if prevented from bleeding to death by a 
cement ; vegetables require no muscles of locomotion, no stomach or bowels, 
no general system of veins ; they have, 1. Three systems of absorbent ves- 
sels; 2. Two pulmonary systems; 3. Arterial systems; 4. Glands; 5. Or* 
gans of reproduction ; 6. Muscles. I. Absorbent system evinced by experi- 
ments by coloured absorption in fig-tree and picris ; called air-vessels errone- 
ously ; spiral structure of absorbent vessels ; retrograde motion of them like 
the throats of cows. II. Pulmonary arteries in the leaves ; and pulmonary- 
veins; no general system of veins shown by experiment ; experiment tend- 
ing to confirm the existence of such a system ; no heart ; the arteries act like 
the vena portarum of the liver ; pulmonary system in the petals of flowers i 
circulation owing to living irritability ; vegetable absorption more powerful 
than animal, as in vines ; not by capillary attraction. 

Note XXXVII. — Vegetable Respiration. 
I. Leaves not perspiratory organs, nor excretory ones; lungs of animals. 
1. Great surfaces of leaves. 2. Vegetable blood changes colour in the leaves 5 
experiment with spurge; with picris. 3. Upper surface of the leaf only acts 
as a respiratory organ. 4. Upper surface repels moisture ; leaves laid on 
water. 5. Leaves killed by oil like insects; muscles at the foot-stalks of 
leaves. 6. Use of light to vegetable leaves ; experiments of Priestley, In- 
genhouz, and Scheele. 7- Vegetable circulation similar to that of fish. II. 
Another pulmonary system belongs to flowers ; colours of flowers. 1. Vas- 
cular structure of the corol. 2. Glands producing honey, wax, &c. perish 
with the corol. 3. Many flowers have no green leaves attending them, as 
Colchicum. 4. Corols not for the defence of the stamens. 5. Corol of 
Helleborus Niger changes to a calyx. 6. Green leaves not necessary to the 
fruit-bud ; green leaves of Colchicum belong to the new bulb, not to the 
flower. 7. Flower-bud after the corol falls is simply an uterus; mature 
flowers not injured by taking off the green leaves. 8. Inosculation of veget- 
able vessels. 

Note XXXVIII. — Vegetable Impregnation. 
Seeds in broom discovered twenty days before the flower opens ; progress 
of the seed after impregnation ; seeds exist before fecundation ; analogy be- 
tween seeds and eggs ; progress of the egg within the hen ; spawn of frogs 
and fishes ; male Salamander ; marine plants project a liquor, not a powder ; 
seminal fluid diluted with water; if a stimulus only ? Male and female influ- 
ence necessary in animals, insects and vegetables, both in production of 
seeds and buds ; does the embryon seed produce the surrounding fruit, like 
insects in gall-nuts ? 

Note XXXIX. — Vegetable Glandulation. 

Vegetable glands cannot be injected with coloured fluids; essential oil; 

wax ; honey ; nectary, its complicate apparatus ; exposes the honey to the air 



278 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part I 

like the lachrymal gland; honey is nutritious; the male and female parts of 
flowers copulate and die like moths and butterflies, and are fed like them 
with honey ; anthers supposed to become insects ; depredation of the honey 
and wax injurious to plants ; honey-dew ; honey oxygenated by exposure to 
air; necessary for the production of sensibility ; the provision for the cmbryon 
plant of honey, sugar, starch, Stc. supplies food to numerous classes of ani- 
mals; various vegetable secretions, as gum tragacanth, camphor, elemi, animt, 
turpentine, balsam of Mecca, aloe, myrrh, elastic resin, manna, sugar, wax, 
tallow, and many other concrete juices; vegetable digestion; chemical pro- 
duction of sugar would multiply mankind ; economy of nature. 



END OF PART I 



Flora at play with Cupid. 



BOTANIC GARDEN. 

PART II. 



CONTAINING 



THE LOVES OF THE PLANTS, 
A P O E M. 

WITH 

PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES, 



Vivunt in Venerera frondes ; nemus omne per altum 
Felix arbor amat; nutant ad mutua Palmse 
Fxdera, Populeo suspirat Populus ictu, 
Et Platani Platanis, Alnoque assibilat Alnus. 

Claud, epitk. 



THE SECOND AMERICAN EDITION. 



Beto*g orfi : 

iiited and sold by T. t3 J. SWORDS, Printers to the Faculty of Physic 
of Columbia College, No. loO Pearl-Street, 



PREFACE, 



JLjINNjEUS has divided the vegetable world into 24 Classes , 
these Classes into about 120 Orders; these Orders contain 
about 2000 Families, or Genera ; and these Families about 
20,000 Species ; besides the innumerable Varieties which the 
accidents of climate or cultivation have added to these Species. 

The Classes are distinguished from each other in this inge- 
nious system, by the number, situation, adhesion, or recipro- 
cal, proportion of the males in each flower, The Orders, in 
many of these Classes, are distinguished by the number, or 
other circumstances of the females. The Families, or Genera, 
are characterized by the analogy of all the parts of the flower 
or fructification. The Species are distinguished by the foliage 
of the plant; and the Varieties by any accidental circumstance 
of colour, taste, or odour ; the seeds of these do not always 
produce plants similar to the parent ; as in our numerous 
fruit-trees and garden flowers; which are propagated by grafts 
or layers. 

The first eleven Classes include the plants, in whose flowers 
both the sexes reside ; and in which the Males or Stamens 
are neither united, nor unequal in height when at maturity; 
and are, therefore, distinguished from each other simply by 
the number of males in each flower, as is seen in the annexed 
Plate, copied from the Dictionaire Botanique of M. Bul- 
liard, in which the numbers of each division refer to the 
Botanic Classes. 

CLASS I. One Male, Monandria; includes the plants 
which possess but one Stamen in each flower. 



iv PREFACE. 

II. Two Males, Diandria. Two Stamens. 

III. Three Males, Triandria. Three Stamen. 

IV. Four Males, Tetrandria. Four Stamens. 

V. Five Males, Pefitandria. Five Stamens. 

VI. Six Males, Hexandria. Six Stamens. 

VII. Seven Males, Hejrtandria. Seven Stamens, 

VIII. Eight Males, Octandtia. Eight Stamens. 

IX. Nine Males, Enneandria. Nine Stamens. 

X. Ten Males, Decandria. Ten Stamens. 

XI. Twelve Males, Do decandria. Twelve Stamens. 

The next two Classes are distinguished not only by the 
number of equal and disunited males, as in the above eleven 
Classes, but require an additional circumstance to be attended 
to, viz. whether the males or stamens be situated on the calyx 
or not. 

XII. Twenty Males, Icosandria. Twenty Stamens in- 
serted on the calvx, or flower-cup ; as is well seen in the last 
Figure of No. xii. in the annexed Plate. 

XIII. Many Males, Polyandria. From 20 to 100 Sta- 
mens, which do not adhere to the calyx ; as is well seen in the 
first Figure of No. xiii. in the annexed Plate. 

In the next two Classes, not only the number of stamens 
are to be observed, but the reciprocal proportions in respect to 
height. 

XIV. Two Powers, Didynamia. Four Stamens, of which 
two are lower than the other two ; as is seen in the two first 
Figures of No. xiv. 

XV. Four Powers, Tetradynamia. Six Stamens, oi 
which four are taller, and the two lower ones opposite to 
each other; as is seen in the third Figure of the upper row in 
No. xv. 

The five subsequent Classes an- distinguished not by the 
pumberof the tmens; bu( h\ their union or adhe- 



PREFACE. v 

sion, either by their anthers or filaments, or to the female or 
pistil. 

XVI. One Brotherhood, Monadelphla. Man}- Stamens 
united by their filaments into one company ; as in the second 
Figure below of No. xvi. 

XVII. Two Brotherhoods, Diadelphia. Many Stamens 
united by their filaments into two companies ; as in the upper- 
most Figure, No. xvii. 

XVIII. Many Brotherhoods, Polyadelphia. Many Sta- 
mens united by their filaments into three or more companies ; 
as in No. xviii. 

XIX. Confederate Males, Syngcnesza. Many Stamens 
united by their anthers ; as in the first and second Figures, 
No. xix. 

XX. Feminine Males, Gynandria. Many Stamens at* 
tached to the pistil. 

The next three Classes consist of plants, whose flowers con= 
tain but one of the sexes ; or if some of them contain both 
sexes, there are other flowers accompanying them of but one 
sex. 

XXI. One House, Moncecia. Male flowers and female 
flowers separate, but on the same plant. 

XXII. Two Houses, Dicecia. Male flowers and female 
flowers separate, on different plants. 

XXIII. Polygamy, Polygamia. Male and female flowers 
on one or more plants, which have, at the same time, flowers 
of both sexes. 

The last Class contains the plants whose flowers are not 
discernible. 

XXIV. Clandestine Marriage, Cryptogamia. 

The Orders of the first thirteen Classes are founded on the 
number of Females, or Pistils, and distinguised by the names, 
One Female, Manogrjiiia. Two Females, Digyma. Three 



jl PREFACE. 

Females, Trigynia, &c. as is seen in No. i. which reprt^ 
sents a plant of one male, one female ; and in the first Figure 
of No. xi. which represents a flower with twelve males, and 
three females; (for, where the pistils have no apparent stvles, 
the summits, or stigmas, are to be numbered) and in the first 
Figure of No. xii. which represents a flower with twenty 
males, and many females ; and in the last Figure of the same 
No. which has twenty male3, and one female ; and in No, 
xiii. which represents a flower with many males, and many 
females. 

The Class of Two Powers is divided into two natural 
Orders ; into such as have their seeds naked at the bottom of 
the calyx, or flower-cup, and such as have their seeds covered ; 
as is seen in No. xiv. Fig. 3 and 5. 

The Class of Four Powers is divided also into two 
Orders ; in one of these the seeds are enclosed in a silicule, as 
in Shepherd's purse, No. xv. Fig. 5. In the other they are 
enclosed in a silique ; as in Wall-floxver, Fig. 4* 

In all the other Classes, excepting the Classes Confederate 
Males and Clandestine Marriage, as the character of each 
Class is distinguished by the situations of the males, the cha- 
racter of the Orders is marked by the numbers of them. In, 
the Class One Brotherhood, No. xvi. Fig. 3, the Order of 
ten males is represented. And in the Class Two Brother- 
hoods, No. xvii. Fig. 2, the Order of ten males is repre- 
sented. 

In the Class Confederate Males, the Orders are chiefly 
distinguished by the fertility or barrenness of the florets of the 
disk, or ray of the compound flower. 

And in the Class of Clandestine Marriage, the four 
Orders are termed Ferns, Mosses, Flags, and Fungusses, 



PREFACE. vii 

The Orders are again divided into Genera, or Families, 
which are all natural associations, and are described from the 
general resemblances of die parts of fructification, in respect 
to .heir number, form, situation, and reciprocal proportion. 
These are the Calyx, or Flower-cup ; as seen in No. iv. Fig. 
1. No. x. Fig. 1 and 3. No. xiv. Fig. 1, 2, 3, 4. Second, 
the Corol, or Blossom ; as seen in No. i. ii. &c. Third, the 
Males, or Stamens ; as in No. iv. Fig. 1, and No. viii. Fig, 
1. Fourth, the Females or Pistils; as in No. i. No. xii. Fig. 
1. No. xiv. Fig. 3. No. xv. Fig. 3. Fifth, the Pericarp, or 
Fruit-vessel; as in No. xv. Fig. 4, 5. No. xvii. Fig„ 2, 
Sixth, the Seeds. 

The illustrious author of the Sexual System of Botany, in 
his preface to his account of the Natural Orders, ingeniously 
imagines, that one plant of each Natural Order was created in 
the beginning; and that the intermarriages of these produced 
one plant of every Genus, or Family; and that the intermar~ 
riages of these Generic, or Family Plants, produced all the 

i^cies: and, lastly, that the intermarriages of the individuals 
of the species produced the Varieties. 

In the following Poem, the name or number of the Class 
or Order of each plant is printed in Italics, as " Tzvo brother 
swains." " One house contains them ; and the word " secret" 
expresses the class of Clandestine Marriage. 

The Reader who wishes to become further acquainted with 
thisr -J. lightful field of science, is advised to study the works 
of the great Master, and is apprized that they are exactly and 
literally translated into English, by a Society at Lichfield, 
in four Volumes Octavo. 

To the SYSTEM OF VEGETABLES is prefixed a 
copious explanation of all the Terms used in Botany, translated 
from a thesis of Dr. Elmsgreen, with the plates and refer- 
from the Phiiosophia Botanica of LlWMVS. 



viii PREFACE. 

To the FAMILIES OF PLANTS is prefixed a Cata^ 
logue of the names of plants, and other Botanic Terms, care- 
fully accented, to show their proper pronunciation ; a work ot 
great labour, and which was much wanted, not only by begin- 
ners, but by proficients in Botany. 



I II 



* *f* 



OaTy 



if,!?- 




f * 



f 




i -cr 






-» '^ 



P R O E M. 



GENTLE READER, 

Lo, here a Camera Obscura is presented to 
thy view, in which are lights and shades dancing 
on a whited canvass, and magnified into apparent 
life! — if thou art perfectly at leisure for such 
trivial amusement, walk in, and view the won- 
ders of my Inchanted Garden, 

Whereas P. Ovidius Naso, a great Necro- 
mancer in the famous Court of Augustus Ce- 
sar, did, by art poetic, transmute Men, Women, 
and even Gods and Goddesses, into Trees and 
Flowers; I have undertaken, by similar art, to 
restore some of them to their original animality, 
after having remained prisoners so long in their 
respective vegetable mansions; and have here 
exhibited them before thee. Which thou may'st 
contemplate as diverse little pictures, suspended 
over the chimney of a Lady's dressing-room, 

Part II, B 



( * ) 

connected only by a slight festoon of ribbons. 



And 



which, though thou may'st not be acquainted 
with the original may amuse thee by the beauty 
of their persons, their graceful attitudes, or the 
brilliancy of their dress. 

FAREWELL. 




BOTANIC GARDEN. 



LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 



CANTO I. 

UeSCEND, ye hovering Sylphs ! aerial Quires, 
And sweep with little hands your silver lyres ; 
With fairy footsteps print your grassy rings, 
Ye Gnomes ! accordant to the tinkling strings : 
While in soft notes I tune to oaten reed 
Gay hopes, and amorous sorrows of the mead — i 
From giant Oaks, that wave their branches dark, 
To the dwarf Moss that clings upon their bark, 
What Beaux and Beauties crowd the gaudy groves, 
And woo and win their vegetable Loves. 
How Snow-drops cold, and blue-eyed Harebels blend 
Their tender tears, as o'er the stream they bend ; 
The love-sick Violet, and the Primrose pale, 
Bow their sweet heads, and whisper to the gales 
With secret sighs the Virgin Lily droops, 
And jealous Cowslips hang their tawny cups. 
How the young Rose, in beauty's damask pride, 
Drinks the warm blushes of his bashful bride ; 
With honey'd lips enamour'd Woodbines meet, 
Clasp with fond arms, and mix their kisses sweet.— 

Stay thy soft-murmuring waters, gentle Rill ; 
Hush, whispering Winds ; ye rustling Leaves, be still ; 



Vegetable Loiies. 1. 10. Linnceus, the celebrated Swedish naturalist, has 
demonstrated, that all flowers contain families of males or females, or both ; 
and on their marriages has constructed his invaluable system of Botany. 



U BOTANIC CARDEN. Part II. 

Rest, silver Butterflies, your quivering wings ; 

Alight, ye Beetles, from your air}' rings ; 

Ye painted Moths, your gold-eyed plumage furl, 25 

Bow your wide horns, your spiral trunks uncurl ; 

Glitter, ye Glow-worms, on your mossv beds ; 

Descend, ye Spiders, on your lengthen'd threads ; 

Slide here, ye horned Snails, with varnish'd shells ; 

Ye Bee-nymphs, listen in your waxen cells ! 30 

BOTANIC MUSE ! who, in this latter age, 
Led by your airy hand the Swedish sage, 
Bade his keen eye your secret haunts explore 
On dewy dell, high wood, and winding shore ; 
Say on each leaf how tiny graces dwell ; 35 

How laugh the Pleasures in a blossom's bell ; 
How insect Loves arise on cobweb wings, 
Aim their light shafts, and point their litde stings. 

" First the tall Canxa lifts his curled brow 
Erect to heaven, and plights his nuptial vow ; 40 

The virtuous pair, in milder regions born, 
Dread the rude blast of Autumn's icy morn ; 
Round the chill fair he folds his crimson vest, 
And clasps the timorous beauty to his breast. 

" Thy love, Callitriche, two Virgins share, 45 

Smit with thy starry eye and radiant hair ; — 
On the green margin sits the youth, and laves 
His floating train of tresses in the waves ; 
Sees his fair features paint the streams that pass, 
And bends for ever o'er the water)' glass. 50 



Canr.a. 1. 39. Cane, or Indian Reed. One male and one female inhabit 
each flower. It is brought from between the tropics to our hot-houses, a.)d 
bears a beautiful crimson flower ; tlie seeds are used as shot by the Indians, 
and are strung for prayer-beads in some catholic countries. 

Callitriche. 1 45. Fine-Hair, Stargrass. One male and two females in- 
habit each flower. The upper leaves grow in form of a star, whence it is 
called Sultana Aquatica by Hay and others; its sums and leaves float far on 
the water, and arc often so matted together, as to bear a peison walking cr. 

them. The male sometimes lives in a separate flower. 



Canto I. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 13 

" Two brother swains, of Collin's gentle name, 
The same their features, and their forms the same. 
With rival love for fair Collinia sigh, 
Knit the dark brow, and roll the unsteadv eye. 
With sweet concern the pitying beauty mourns, 55 

And sooths with smiles the jealous pair by turns. 

" Sweet blooms Genista in the myrtle shade, 
And ten fond brothers woo the haughty maid. 
Two knights before thy fragrant altar bend, 
Adored Melissa ! and txvo squires attend. 60 



Collinsonia. 1. 51. Two males, one female. I have lately observed a very 
singular circumstance in this flower ; the two males stand widely diverging 
from each other, and the female bends herself into contact first with one of 
them, and after some time leaves this and applies herself to the other. It is 
probable one of the anthers may be mature before the other. See note on 
Gloriosa and Genista. The females in Nigella, devil in the bush, are very 
tall compared to the males; and bending over in a circle to them, give the 
flower some resemblance to a regal crown. The female of the Epilobium 
Augustifolium, rose bay willow herb, bends down amongst the males for 
several days, and becomes upright again when impregnated. 

Genista. 1. 57. Dyer's broom. Ten males and one female inhabit this 
flower. The males are generally united at the bottom in two sets, whence 
LinnKUS has named the class " two brotherhoods." In the Genista, how- 
ever, they are united in but one set. The flowers of this class are called 
papilionaceous, from their resemblance to a butterfly, as the pea-blossom. In 
the Spartium Scoparium, or common broom, I have lately observed a curious 
circumstance ; the males, or stamens, are in two sets, one set rising a quarter 
of an inch above the other ; the upper set does not arrive at their maturity so 
soon as the lower; and the stigma, or head of the female, is produced amongst 
the upper or immature set ; but as soon as the pistil grows tall enough to burst 
open the keel-leaf or hood of the flower, it bends itself round in an instant, 
like a French horn, and inserts its head, or stigma, amongst the lower or 
mature set of males. The pistil, or female, continues to grow in length; 
and in a few days the stigma arrives again amongst the upper set, by the 
time they become mature. This wonderful contrivance is readily seen by 
opening the keel-leaf of the flowers of broom before they burst spontaneously. 
See note on Collinsonia, Gloriosa, Draba. 

Melissa. 1. 60. Balm. In each flower there are four males and one 
female ; two of the males stand higher than the other two ; whence the name 
of the class " two powers." I have observed in the Ballota, and others of 
this class, that the two lower stamens, or males, become mature before the 
two higher. After they have shed their dust, they turn themselves away 
outwards ; and the pistil, or female, continuing to grow a little taller, is ap- 
plied to the upper stamens. See Gloriosa and Genista. 

All the plants of this class, which have naked seeds, are aromatic. The 
Marum and Nepeta are particularly delightful to cats ; no other brute animals 
$eem delighted with any odours but those of their food or prey. 



14 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part II. 

Mea&Ia's soft chains Jive suppliant beaux confess, 
And, hand in hand, the laughing belle address; 
Alike to all, she bows with wanton air, 
Rolls her dark eye, and waves her golden hair. 

" Woo'd with long care, Curcuma, cold and shy, 65 

Meets her fond husband with averted eye : 



Meadia. 1. 61. Dodecatheon, American Cowslip. Five males and one 
Female. The males, or anthers, touch each other. The uncommon beauty 
of this flower occasioned Linnxus to give it a name signifying the twelve 
heathen gods; and Dr. Mead to atnx his own name to it. The pistil is 
much longer than the stamens ; hence the flower-stalks have their elegant 
bend, that the stigma may hang downwards to receive the fecundating dust 
of the anthers. And the petals are so beautifully turned back to prevent the 
rain or dew-drops from sliding down and washing oft' this dust prematurely; 
and, at the same time, exposing it to the light and air. As soon as the seeds 
?_re formed, it erects all the flower-stalks to prevent them from falling out, 
and thus looses the beauty of its figure. Is this a mechanical effect, or does it 
indicate a vegetable storgc to preserve its ou'spring ? bee note on Hex, and 
Gloriosa. 

In the Meadia, the Borago, Cyclamen, SoJanum, and many others, the 
filaments are very short compared with the style. Hence it became necessary, 
1st. To furnish the stamens with long anthers. 2d. To lengthen and bend 
the peduncle or flower-stalk, that the flower might hang downwards. 3d. 
To reflect the petals. 4th. To erect these peduncles when the germ was 
fecundated. We may reason upon this by observing, that all this apparatus 
might have been spared, if the filaments alone had grown longer; and that 
thence in these flowers the filaments are the most unchangeable parts ; and 
that thence their comparative length, in respect to the style, would aftbrd a 
most permanent mark of their generic character. 

Curcuma. 1. 65. Turmeric. One male and one female inhabit this flower; 
but there are besides four imperfect males, or filaments, without anthers 
upon them, called by Linnaeus eunuchs. The flax of our country has ten 
filaments, and but five of them are terminated with anthers; the Portugal 
flax has ten perfect males, or stamens ; the Verbena of our country has four 
males; that of Sweden has but two; the genus Albuca, the Bignonia Ca- 
talpa, Gratiola, and hemlock-leaved Geranium, have only half their filaments 
crowned with anthers. In like manner the florets, which form the ravs of 
the flowers of the order frustrations polygamy of the class syngenesia, or 
confederate males, as the sun-flower, are furnished with a style only, and 
lid stigma, and are thence barren. There is also a style without a stigma in 
the Whole order diuecia gynandria ; the male flowers of which are thence bar- 
ren. The Opulas is another plant which contains some unprolific dowers. 
In like manner some tribes of insects have males, females, and neuters among 
them ; as bees, wasps, ants. 

There is a curious circumstance belonging to the class of insects which 

have two wings, or diptera, anal >gous to the rudiments of stamens above 

described ; viz. two little knobs are found placed, each on a stalk or peduncle, 

generall) under a little arched scale ; which appear to be rudiments of hinder 

tiled b) Linnaeus halteres, or poisers, a term of his intro- 

A. T. Bludh. Ama.u. Acad. V. 7. Other animals have marks of 




C fuadta 



Canto I. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 15 

Four beardless youths the obdurate beauty move 
With soft attentions of Platonic love. 

u With vain desires the pensive Alcea burns;, 
And, like sad Eloisa, loves and mourns. 70 

The freckled Iris owns a fiercer flame, 
And three un jealous husbands wed the dame. 
Cupressus dark disdains his dusky bride, 
One dome contains them, but two beds divide. 



having, in a long process of time, undergone changes in some parts of their 
bodies, which may have been effected to accommodate them to new ways of 
procuring their food. The existence of teats on the breasts of male animals, 
and which are generally replete with a thin kind of milk at their nativity, is 
a wonderful instance of this kind. Perhaps all the productions of nature are 
in their progress to greater perfection ! an idea countenanced by the modern 
discoveries and deductions concerning the progressive formation of the solid 
parts of the terraqueous globe, and consonant to the dignity of the Creator of 
all things. 

Alcea. I, 69. Flore pleno. Double hollyhock. The double flowers, so 
much admired by the florists, are termed, by the botanist, vegetable monsters ; 
in some of these the petals are multiplied three or four times, but without ex- 
cluding the stamens ; hence they produce some seeds, as Campanula- and 
Stramonium ; but in others the petals become so numerous as totally to ex- 
clude the stamens, or males, as Caltha, Peonia, and Algea ; these produce no 
seeds, and are termed eunuchs. Philos. Botan. No. 150. 

These vegetable monsters are formed in many ways : 1st. By the multi- 
plication of the petals, and the exclusion of the nectaries, as in larkspur. 
2d. By the multiplication of the nectaries, and exclusion of the petals, as in 
columbine. 3d. In some flowers growing in cymes, the wheel-shape flowers 
in the margin are multiplied to the exclusion of the bell-shape flowers in the 
centre, as in gelder-rose. 4th. By the elongation of the florets in the centre. 
Instances of both these are found in daisy and feverfew. For other kinds of 
vegetable monsters, see Plantago. 

The perianth is not changed in double flowers ; hence the genus, or family, 
may be often discovered by the calyx, as in Hepatica, Ranunculus, Alcea. 
In those flowers which have many petals, the lowest series of the petals re- 
mains unchanged in respect to number ; hence the natural number of the 
petals is easily discovered, a& in poppies, roses, and Nigella, or devil in a 
bush. Phil. Bot. p. 128. 

Iris. I, 71. Flower de Luce. Three males, one female. Some of the 
species have a beautifully freckled flower ; the large stigma, or head of the 
female, covers the three males, counterfeiting a petal with its divisions. 

Cupressus. 1.73. Cypress. One house. The males live in separate flowers, 
but on the same plant. The males of some of these plants, w hich are in 
separate flowers from the females, have an elastic membrane ; which disperses 
their dust to a considerable distance, when the anthers burst open- This dust, 
on a fine day, may often be seen like a cloud hanging round the common 
nettle. The males and females of all the cone-bearing plants are in separate 
flowers, either on the same or on different plants ; they produce resins, and 
many of them arc supposed to supply the most durable timber : what is called 



10 BOTANIC GARDEN. Fart EL 

The proud Osyris flics his angry lair, 7^ 

Two houses hold the fashionable pair. 

" With strange deformity Plantago treads, 
A monster-birth! and lifts his hundred heads j 
Yet with soft love a gentle belle he charms, 
And clasps the beauty in his hundred arms. 80 

So hapless Desdemoxa, fair and young, 
Won by Othello's captivating tongue* 
Sigh'd o'er each strange and piteous tale, distress'd, 
And sunk,' enamour'd, on his sooty breast. 

" Txvo gentle shepherds, and their sister-wives, 85 

With thee, Axthoxa! lead ambrosial lives j 



Venice-turpentine is obtained from the larch by wounding the bark about two 
feet from the ground, and catching it as it exudes ; Sandarach is procured 
from common juniper ; and incense from a juniper with yellow fruit. The 
unperishable chests, which contain the Egyptian mummies, were of Cypress ; 
and the Cedar, with which black-lead pencils are covered, is not liable to be 
eaten by worms. See Miln's Bot. Diet. art. Conifers. The gates of St. 
Peter's church at Rome, which had lasted from the time of Constantine to 
that of Pope Eugene the Fourth, that is to say, eleven hundred years, were 
of Cypress, and had in that time suffered no decay. According to Thucy- 
dides, the Athenians buried the bodies of their heroes in coffins of Cypress, 
as being not subject to decay. A similar durability has also been ascribed to 
Cedar. Thus Horace, 



■ speramns carmina Jingi 

Posse Unenda cedro iSf Uvi servanda cupresso. 

Osyris. 1.75. Two houses. The males and females are on different plants. 
There are many instances on record where female plants have been impreg- 
nated at very great distance from their male; the dust discharged from the 
anthers is very light, small, and copious, so that it may spread very wide in 
the atmosphere, and be carried to the distant pistils, without the supposition 
of any particular attraction; these plants resemble some insects, as the ants 
and cochineal insect, of which the males have wings, but not the females. 

Plantago. 1. 77. Rosea. Rose-Plantain. In this vegetable monster the 
bractes, or divisions of the spike, become wonderfully enlarged ; and are con- 
verted into leaves. The chaffy scales of the calyx in Xcranthemum, and in 
a species of Dianthus, and the glume in some alpine grasses, and the scales 
of the anient in the Salix Rosea, rose-willow, grow into leaves, and produce 
other kinds of monsters. The double flowers become monsters by the mul- 
tiplication of their petals or nectaries. See note on 

ithnm. 1. 86. Vernal grass. Two males, two females. The 

iwers of this grass 

give the [Yagrai [ am \u ntl] \ \\ iparou ■ 

that is, tha id of seeds, which, after.* 



Canto I. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 17 

Where the wide heath in purple pride extends, 

And scatter'd furze its golden lustre blends, 

Closed in a green recess, unenvy'd lot ! 

The blue smoke rises from their turf-built cot ,- 90 

Bosom'd in fragrance blush their infant train, 

Eye the warm sun, or drink the silver rain. 

" The fair Osmund a seeks the silent dell, 
The ivy canopy, and dripping cell ; 

There, hid in shades, clandestine rites approves,. 95 

Till the green progeny betrays her loves. 

" With charms despotic fair Chondrilla reigns 
O'er the soft hearts oi Jive fraternal swains; 
If sighs the changeful nymph, alike they mourn j 
And, if she smiles, with rival raptures burn. 100 

So, tuned in unison, Eolian Lyre ! 
Sounds in sweet symphony thy kindred wire ; 

time, drop oft", and strike root into the ground. This circumstance is said 
to obtain in many of the alpine grasses, whose seeds are perpetually devoured 
by small birds. The Festuca- Dumetorum, fescue grass of the bushes, pro- 
duces bulbs from the sheaths of its straw. The Allium Magicum, or magi- 
cal onion, produces onions on its head, instead of seeds. The Polygonum 
Viviparum, viviparous bistort, rises about a foot high, with a beautiful spike 
of flowers, which are succeeded by buds or bulbs, which fall off and take 
root. There is a bush frequently seen on birch-trees, like a bird's nest, 
which seems to be a similar attempt of nature, to produce another tree, 
which, falling off, might take root in spongy ground. 

There is an instance of this double mode of production in the animal king- 
dom, which is equally extraordinary : the same species of Aphis is viviparous 
in summer, and oviparous in autumn. A. T. Bladh. Amsen. Acad. V. 7- 

Osmundu. 1. 93. This plant grows on moist rocks; the parts of its flower 
or its seeds are scarce discernible; whence Linnreus has given the name of 
clandestine marriage to this class. The younger plants are of a beautiful 
vivid green. 

Cbondnlla. 1. 97. Of the class Confederate Males. The numerous flo- 
rets, which constitute the disk of the flowers in this class, contain in each 
five males suriounding one female, which are connected at top, whence the 
name of the class. An Italian writer, in a discourse on the irritability of 
flowers, asserts, that if the top of the floret be touched, all the filaments 
which support the cylindrical anther will contract themselves, and that, by 
thus raising or depressing the anther, the whole of the prolific dust is col- 
lected on the stigma. He adds, that if one filament be touched after it is 
separated from the floret, that it will contract like the muscular fibres of 
animal bodies: his experiments were tried on the Centaurea Calcitrapoides, 
and on artichokes and globe-thistles* Discourse on the irritability of plants. 
Dodsley. 

Part II. C 



18 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part II. 

Now, gently swept by Zephyr's vernal wings, 

Sink in soft cadences the love-sick strings ; 

And now with mingling chords, and voices higher, 105 

Peal the full anthems of the aerial choir. 

" Five sister-nymphs, to join Diana's train, 
With thee, fair Lychnis ! vow, — but vow in vain; 
Beneath one roof resides the virgin band, 
Flies the fond swain, and scorns his offer'd hand ; 110 

But when soft hours on breezy pinions move, 
And smiling May attunes her lute to love, 
Each wanton beauty, trick'd in all her grace, 
Shakes the bright dew-drops from her blushing face ; 
In gay undress displays her rival charms, 115 

And calls her wondering lovers to her arms. 

" When the young Hours, amid her tangled hair, 
Wove the fresh rose-bud, and the lily fair, 
Proud Gloriosa led three chosen swains, 
The blushing captives of her virgin chains — 120 



Lychnis. 1. 108. Ten males and five females. The flowers which con- 
tain the rive females, and those which contain the ten males, are found on 
different plants, and often at a great distance from each other. Five of the 
ten males arrive at their maturity some days before the other five, as may be 
seen by opening the corol before it naturally expands itself When the 
females arrive at their maturity, they rise ab;>ve the petals, as if looking 
abroad for their distant husbands: the scarlet ones contribute much to the 
beauty of our meadows in May and J-une. 

Gloriosa. 1. 119. Superba. Six males, one female. The petals of this 
beautiful flower, with three of the stamens, which are first mature, stand up 
in apparent disorder; and the pistil bends at nearly a right angle, to insert 
its stigma amongst them. In a few days, as these decline, the other three 
stamens bend over, and approach the pistil. In the Fntillaria Persica, the 
six stamens are of equal lengths, and the anthers lie at a distance from the 
pistil, and three alternate ones approach first ; and, when these decline, the 
other three approach: in the Lithium Salicaria (which has twelve males and 
one female), a beautiful red flower, which grows on the banks of rivers, six 
of the males arrive at maturity, and surround the female some time before the 
Other six; when these decline, the other six rise up, and supply their places. 
Several other flowers have, in a similar manner, two sets of stamens of 
different ages, as Adoxa, Lychnis, Saxifraga. See Genista Perhaps a 
difference in the time of their maturity obtains in all these Bowers, which 
have numerous stamens. In the Kahnia, the ten stamens lie round the pistil 
like the radii of a wheel, and each anther is concealed in a nich of the corol, 

tt protect it from cold and moisture 5 these anthers rise separately from tteis 




ywric&a < ////t<' j'/w 



Canto I. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. ly 

When Time's rude hand a bark of wrinkles spread 
Hound her weak limbs, and silver'd o'er her head. 
Three other youths her riper years engage, 
The flatter'd victims cf her wily age. 

" So, in her wane of beauty, Ninon won 125 

With fatal smiles her gay unconscious son.— 
Clasp'd in his arms, she own'd a mother's name,-— . 
" Desist, rash youth ! restrain your impious flame, 
" First on that bed your infant-form was press'd, 
" Born by my throes, and nurtured at my breast."— 130 

Back as from death he sprung, with wild amaze 
Fierce on the fair he fix'd his ardent gaze ; 
Dropp'd on one knee, his frantic arms outspread, 
And stole a guilty glance toward the bed ; 
Then breathed from quivering lips a whisper'd vow, 135 

And bent on heaven his pale repentant brow ; 
" Thus, thus !" he cried, and plunged the furious dart, 
And life and love gush'd, mingled, from his heart* 

" The fell Silene, and her sisters fair, 
Skill'd in destruction, spread the viscous snare, 140' 

The harlot-band ten lofty bravoes screen, 
And, frowning, guard the magic nets unseen.— » 



niches, and approach the pistil for a time, and then recede to their former 
situations. 

Silene. I. 139. Catphfly. Three females and ten males inhabit each flower ,• 
the viscous material, which surrounds the stalks under the flowers of this 
plant, and of the Cuaibalus Qtites, is a curious contrivance to prevent various 
insects from plundering the honey, or devouring the seed. In the Diona^a 
Muscipula there is a still more wonderful contrivance to prevent the depreda- 
tions of insects; the leaves are armed with long teeth, like the antenna of 
insects, and lie spread upon the ground round the stem ; and are so irritable, 
that when an insect creeps upon them, they fold up, and crush or pierce it to 
death. The last Professor Linnxus, in his Supplementum Plantarum, gives 
the following account of the Arum Muscivorum. The flower has the smell 
of carrion ; by which the flies are invited to lay their eggs in the chamber of 
the flower, but in vain endeavour to escape, being prevented by the hairs 
pointing inwards., and thus perish in the flower; whence its name of fly- 
eater. P. 411. In the Dypsacus is another contrivance for this purpose : 
a bason of water is placed round each joint of the stem. In the Drosera is 
another kind of fly-trap. See Dypsacus and Drosera. The flowers of Silene 
and Cucubalus are closed all day, but are open, and give an agreeable odour 
in the night. See Cerea. See additional notes at the end of the poem. 



20 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part II 

Haste glittering nations, tenants of the air, 

Oh, steer from hence your viewless course afar ! 

If with soft words, sweet blushes, nods, and smiles, 1-1' 

The three dread Syrens lure you to their toils, 

Limed by their art in vain you point your stings, 

In vain the efforts of vour whirring wings ! — 

Go, seek your gilded mates and infant hives, 

Nor taste the honey purchased with your lives ! 15C 

" When heaven's high vault condensing clouds deform, 
Fair Amaryllis flies the incumbent storm, 
Seeks with unsteady step the shelter' d vale, - 
And turns her blushing beauties from the gale.-— 



Amaryllis. 1. 152. Formosissima. Most beautiful Amaryllis. Six malt;, 
one female. Some of the bell-flowers close their apertures at night, or in 
rainy or cold weather, as the convolvulus, and thus protect their included 
stamens and pistils. Other bell-flowers hang their apertures downwards, as 
many of the lilies ; in those the pistil, when at maturity, is longer I 
stamens ; and by this pendant attitude of the bell, when the anthers burst, 
their dust falls on the stignia ; and these are, at the same time, sheltered as 
with an umbrella from rain and dews. But, as a free exposure to the air is 
necessary for their fecundation, the style and filaments in many of these 
flowers continue to grow longer after the bell is open, and hang down below 
its rim. In others, as in the Martagon, the bell is deeply divided, and the 
divisions are reflected upwards, that they may not prevent the access of air, 
and, at the same time, afford some shelter from peipendicular rain cr dew.' 
Other bell-flowers, as the Hemerocallis and Amaryllis, have their bells nod- 
ding only, as it were, or hanging obliquely towards the horizon; which, as 
their stems are slender, turn like a weathercock from the wind, and thus 
very effectually preserve their enclosed stamens and anthers from the rain and 
cold. Many of these flowers, both before and after their season of fecunda- 
tion, erect their heads perpendicular to the horizon, like the Meadia, which 
cann6t be explained from mere mechanism. 

The Amaryllis Formosissima is a flower of the last-mentioned kind, and 
affords an agreeable example of art in the vegetable economy. 1. The pistil 
is of great length compared with the stamens; and this I suppose to have 
been the most unchangeable part of the flower, as in Meadia, which see. 
J. To counteract this circumstance, the pistil and stamens are made to de- 
cline downwards, that the prolific dust might fall from the anthers on the 
stigma. 3. To produce this effect, and to secure it when produced, the corol 
is lacerated, contrary to what occurs in other flowers of this genus, and the 
lowest division, with the two next lowest ones, are wrapped closely over the 
style and filaments, binding them forcibly down lower towards the horizon, 
than the usual inclination of the bell in this genus, and thus constitutes a 
most elegant flower. There is another contrivance for this purpose in the 
Hemerocallis Flava : the long pistil often is bent somewhat like the capital 
letter ^, with design to shorten it, and thus to brir.g the stigma amongst the 




r// 1, 1/-?///,,, /, w/// f > /;/.///;,,/ 



Canto I. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 

Six rival youths, with soft concern impressed, 
Calm all her fears, and charm her cares to rest. — 
So shines at eve the sun-illumined fane, 
Lifts its bright cross, and waves its golden vane ; 
From every breeze the polish'd axle turns, 
And high in air the dancing meteor burns. 

" Four of the giant brood with Ilex stand, 
Each grasps a thousand arrows in his hand ; 
A thousand steely points on every scale 
Form the bright terrors of his bristly mail.— 
So arm'd, immortal Moore uncharm'd the spell, 
And slew the wily dragon of the well. — 
Sudden with rage their injured bosoms burn, 
Retort the insult, or the wound return ; 
Unwrong'd* as gentle as the breeze that sweeps 
The unbending harvests or undimpled deeps, 
They guard, the Kings of Needwood's wide domains, 
Their sister-wives and fair infantine trains ; 



Ilex. 1.161. Holly. Four males, four females. Many plants, like many 
animals, are furnished with arras for their protection ; these are either aculei, 
prickles, as in rose and barberry, which are formed from the outer bark of 
the plant ; or spins, thorns, as in hawthorn, which are an elongation of the 
wood, and hence more difficult to be torn off than the former ; or stimuli, 
stings, as in the nettles, which are armed with a venomous fluid for the 1 
annoyance of naked animals. The shrubs and trees which have prickles or 
thorns, are grateful food to many animals, as gooseberry and gorse; and 
would be quickly devoured if not thus armed ; the stings seem a protection 
against some kinds of insects, as well as the naked mouths of quadrupeds, 
Many plants lose their thorns by cultivation, as wild animals lose their feroci- 
ty, and some of them their horns. A curious circumstance attends the large 
hollies in Needwood forest ; they are armed with thorny leaves about eight 
feet high, and have smooth leaves above, as if they were conscious that 
horses and cattle could not reach their upper branches. See note on Meadia, 
and on Mancinella. The numerous dumps of hollies in Needwood forest 
serve as land-marks to direct the travellers across it in various directions ; and 
as a shelter to the deer and cattle in winter; and, in scarce seasons, supply 
them with much food. For when the upper branches, which are without 
prickles, are cut down, the deer crop the leaves and peel off the bark. The 
bird-lime made from the bark of hollies seems to be a very similar material to 
the elastic gum, or Indian rubber, as it is called. There is a fossile elastic 
bitumen found at Matlock, in Derbyshire, which much resembles these sub- 
stances in its elasticity and inflammability. The thorns of the Mimosa Cor- 
nigera resemble cows' horns in appearance as well as in use. System of 
Vegetables, p. 782. 



S2 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part H, 

Lead the lone pilgrim through the trackless glade, 
Or guide in leaf}- wilds the wandering maid. 

" So Wright's bold pencil from Vesuvio's hight 175 

Hurls his red lavas to the troubled night ; 
From Calpc starts the intolerable flash, 
Skies burst in flames, and blazing qceans dash ;— 
Or bids in sweet repose his shades recede, 
Winds the still vale, and slopes the velvet mead; 18$ 

On the pale stream expiring Zephyrs sink, 
And Moonlight sleeps upon its hoary brink. 

" Gigantic Nymph! the fair Kleinhovia reigns, 
The grace and terror of Orixa's plains ; 

O'er her warm cheek the blush of beauty swims, 185 

And nerves Herculean bend her sinewy limbs ; 
With frolic eye she views the affrighted throng, 
And shakes the meadows as she towers along ; 
With playful violence displays her charms, 
And bears her trembling lovers in her arms. 190 

So fair Thalestris shook her plumy crest, 
And bound in rigid mail her jutting breast ; 
Poised her long lance amid the walks of war, 
And Beauty thunder'd from Bellona's car ; 
Greece arnVd in vain, her captive heroes wove 195 

The chains of conquest with the wreaths of love* 



Hurls bis red lavas. I. 176. Alluding to the grand paintings of the erup- 
tions of Vesuvius, and of the destruction of the Spanish vessels before Gib- 
raltar; and to the beautiful landscapes, and moonlight scenes, by Mr. 
Wright, of Derby. 

Kleinhcma. 1 183. In this class the males in each flower are supported by 
the female. The name of the class may be translated " Viragoes," or 
" Feminine Males." 

The largest tree perhaps in the world is of the same natural order as 
Kleinhovia ; it is the Adansonia, or Ethiopian Sour-gourd, or African Cala- 
bash-tree. Mr. Adanson says the diameter of the trunk frequently exceeds 
25 feet, and the horizontal branches are from 45 to 55 feet long, and so large 
that each branch is equal to the largest trees of Europe. The breadth of the 
top is from l'JO to IjO feet; and one of the roots bared only in part, by the 
washing awa) of the earth from the river, near which it grew, measured 
1 LO Feet long ; and yet these stupendous trees never exceed 70 feet in height. 
Voyage to Senegal. 



Canto I. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 23 

" When o'er the cultured lawns and dreary wastes 
Retiring Autumn flings her howling blasts, 
Bends in tumultuous waves the struggling woods, 
And showers their leafy honours on the floods, 200 

In withering heaps collects the flowery spoil, 
And each chill insect sinks beneath the soil ; 
Quick flies fair Tulipa the loud alarms, 
And folds her infant closer in her arms j 

In some lone cave, secure pavilion, lies, 205 

And waits the courtship of serener skies. — 
So, six cold moons, the Dormouse charm'd to rest, 
Indulgent Sleep ! beneath thy eider breast, 
In fields of Fancy climbs the kernel'd groves, 
Or shares the golden harvest with his loves. 210 

Then bright from earth, amid the troubled sky, 
Ascends fair Colchica with radiant eye, 
Warms the cold bosom of the hoary year, 
And lights with Beauty's blaze the dusky sphere. 

Tulipa. 1. 203. Tulip. What is, in cammon language, called a bulbous- 
root, is, by Linnxus, termed the Hybernacle, or Winter-lodge of the young 
plant. As these bulbs, in every respect, resemble buds, except in their 
being produced under ground, and include the leaves and flower in miniature, 
which are to be expanded in the ensuing spring. By cautiously cutting, in 
winter, through the concentric coats of a tulip-root, longitudinally from the top 
to the base, and taking them oif successively, the whole flower of the next 
summer's tulip is beautifully seen by the naked eye, with its petals, pistil, 
and stamens ; the flowers exist in other bulbs in the same manner as in Hya- 
cinths ; but the individual flowers of these being less, they are not so easily 
dissected, or so conspicuous to the naked eye. 

In the seeds of the Nymphaea Nelumbo, the leaves of the plant are seen so 
distinctly, that Mr. Ferber found out by them to what plant the seeds belong- 
ed. Amxn. Acad. V. vi. No. 120. He says, that Mariotte first observed 
the future flower and foliage in the bulb of a tulip ; and adds, that it is 
pleasant to see in the buds of the Hepatica and Pedicularis hirsuta, yet lying 
in the earth ; and in the gems of Daphne Mezereon ; and at the base of Os- 
munda Lunaria, a perfect plant of the future year, complete in all its parts. 
Ibid. 

Colchicum auturtxnale. 1. 212. Autumnal Meadow saffron. Six males. 
three females. The germ is buried within the root, which thus seems to con- 
stitute a part of the flower. Families of Plants, p. 242. These singular 
flowers appear in the autumn without any leaves ; whence, in some countries, 
they are called Naked Ladies : in the March following the green leaves spring 
up, and in April the seed-vessel rises from the ground ; the seeds ripen in 
May, contrary to the usual habits of vegetables which flower in the spring and 
ripen their seeds in the autumn. Miller's Diet. The juice of the root of 
this plant is so acrid as to produce violent effects on the human constitution, 
■which also prevents it from being eaten by subterranean insects, and thus 



24 BOTANIC GARDEN. Canto I. 

Three blushing Maids the intrepid Nymph attend, 

And six gay Youths, enamour'd train ! defend. 

So shines with silver guards the Georgian star, 

And drives on Night's blue arch his glittering car ; 

Hangs o'er the billowy clouds^his lucid form, 

Wades through the mist, and dences in the storm. 220 

" Great Helianthus guides o'er twilight plains 
In gay solemnity his Dervise-trains ; 
Marshall'd in Jives each gaudy band proceeds, 
Each gaudy band a plumed Lady leads ; 
With zealous step he climbs the upland lawn, 
And bows in homage to the rising dawn ; 
Imbibes with eagle eye the golden ray, 
And watches, as it moves, the orb of day. 

u Queen of the marsh, imperial Drosera treads 
Rush-fringed banks, and moss-embroider'd beds ; 230 

guards the seed-vessel during the winter. The defoliation of deciduous trees 
is announced by the flowering of the Colchicum ; of these the ash is the lasr 
that puts forth its leaves, and the first that loses them. Phil. Bot. p. 276. 

The Hamamelis, Witch Hazel, is another plant which flowers in autumn; 
when the leaves fell off, the flowers come out in clusters from the joints of 
the branches, and in Virginia ripen their seed in the ensuing spring, but in 
this country their seeds seldom ripen. Lin. Spec. Plant. Miller's Diet. 

Helianthus. 1 221. Sun-flower. The numerous florets, which constitute 
the disk of this flower, contain in each five males surrounding one female ; 
the five stamens have their anthers connected at top ; whence the name of 
the class " Confederate Males:" see note on Chondrilla. The sun-flower fol- 
lows the course of the sun by nutation, not by twisting its stem. (Hale's 
Veg. Stat.) Other plants, when they are confined in a room, turn the shin- 
ing surface of their leaves, and bend their whole branches to the light. See 
Mimosa. 

A plumed Lady leads. I. 224. The seeds of many plants of this class are 
furnished with a plume, by which admirable mechanism, they are dissemi- 
nated by the winds far from their parent stem, and look like a shuttlecock, 
as they fly. Other seeds are disseminated by animals ; of these some attach 
themselves to their hair or feathers by a gluten, as mislcto ; others by hooks, 
as cleavers, burdock, hounds'-tongue ; and others are swallowed whole for the 
sake of the fruit, and voided uninjured, as the hawthorn, juniper, and some 
grasses. Other seeds again disperse themselves by means of an clastic seed- 
vi set, as oats, geranium, and impatiens; and the seeds of aquatic plants, 
md I those which grow on the banks of rivers, are carried man} miles by 
th« currents, into which they fall. See Impatiens, Zostera, Cassia, Carlina 

Drfisera. 1.229. Sun-dew. Five males, live females. The leaves 
marsh-plant are pm 



Canto I. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 25 

Redundant folds of glossy silk surround 

Her slender waist, and trail upon the ground ; 

Five sister-nymphs collect with graceful ease, 

Or spread the floating purple to the breeze ; 

And Jive fair youths with duteous love comply 235 

With each soft mandate of her moving eye. 

As with sweet grace her snowy neck she bows, 

A zone of diamonds trembles round her brows j 

Bright shines the silver halo, as she turns ; 

And, as she steps, the living lustre burns. 240 

" Fair Lonicera prints the dewy lawn, 
And decks with brighter blush the vermil dawn * 

tions. And, which is curious, at the point of every thread of this erect fringe 
stands a pellucid drop of mucilage, resembling an earl's coronet. This mucus 
is a secretion from certain glands, and, like the viscous material round the 
flower-stalks of Silene (catchfly), prevents small insects from infesting the 
leaves. As the ear-wax in animals seems to be in part designed to prevent 
fleas and other insects from getting into their ears. See Silene. Mr. Wheat- 
ly, an eminent surgeon in Cateaton-street, London, observed these leaves 
to bend upwards, when an insect settled on them, like the leaves of the Mus- 
cipula Veneris, and pointing all their globules of mucus to the centre, that 
they completely entangled and destroyed it. M. Broussonet, in the Mem. de 
l'Acad. des Sciences, for the year 1784, p. 615, after having described the 
motion of the Dionaea, adds, that a similar appearance has been observed in 
the leaves of two species of Drosera. 

Lonicera. 1. 241. Caprifolium, Honeysuckle. Five males, one female. 
Nature has, in many flowers, used a wonderful apparatus to guard the nec- 
tary, or honey-gland, from insects. In the honeysuckle the petal terminates 
in a long tube, like a cornucopias, or horn of plenty ; and the honey is pro- 
duced at the bottom of it. In Aconitum, monks-hood, the nectaries stand 
upright, like two horns covered with a hood, which abounds with such acrid 
jnatter that no insects penetrate it. In Helleborus, hellebore, the many necta- 
ries are placed in a circle like little pitchers, and add much to the beauty of 
the flower. In the columbine, Aquilegia, the nectary is imagined to be like 
the neck and body of a bird, and the two petals standing upon each side to 
represent wings ; whence its name of columbine, as if resembling a nest of 
young pigeons fluttering whilst their parent feeds them. The importance of 
the nectary in the economy of vegetation, is explained at large in the notes on. 
part the first. 

Many insects are provided with a long and pliant proboscis, for the pur- 
pose of acquiring this grateful food, as a variety of bees, moths, and butter- 
flies ; but the Sphinx Convolvuli, or unicorn moth, is furnished with the 
most remarkable proboscis in this climate. It carries it rolled up in concen- 
tric circles under its chin, and occasionally extends it to above three inches in 
length. This trunk consists of joints and muscles, and seems to have more 
versatile movements than the trunk of the elephant ; and near its termination 
is split into two capillary tubes. The excellence of this contrivance for rob-, 
bing the flowers of their honev, keeps this beautiful insect fat and bulky, 

Part II. D 



26 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part IL 

Winds round the shadowy rocks, and pansied vales, 

And scents with sweeter breath the summer-gales ; 

With artless grace and native ease she charms, 24-5 

And bears the horn of plenty in her arms-. 

Five rival swains their tender cares unfold, 

And watch with eye askance the treasured gold. 

" Where rears huge Tenerif his azure crest y 
Aspiring Drab a builds her eagle nest; 250 

Her pendant eyry icy caves surround, 
Where erst Volcanos mined the rocky ground. 
Pleased round the Fair four rival Lords ascend 
The shaggy steeps, truo menial vouths attend. 
High in the setting ray the beauty stands, 25£ 

And her tall shadow waves on distant lands, 

" Oh! stay, bright habitant of air, alight, 
Celestial Vise a, from thy angel-flight ! — 



though it flies only in the evening, when the flowers have closed their petals, 
and are thence more difficult of access ; and, at the same time, the brilliant 
colours of the moth contribute to its safety, by making it mistaken by the 
late sleeping birds for the flower it rests on. 

Besides these, there is a curious contrivance attending the Ophrvs, com- 
monly called the Bee-orchis, and the Fly-orchis, with some kinds of the Del- 
phinium, called Bee-larkspurs, to preserve their honey ; in these the nectary 
and petals resemble, in form and colour, the insects which plunder them ; 
and thus it may be supposed, they often escape these hourly robbers, by 
having the appearance of being pre-occupicd. See note on Rubia, and Con- 
ferva Polymorpha, and on Epidendrum. 

Draba. 1. 250. Alpina. Alpine Witlow-grass. One female and six males. 
Four of these males stand above the other two ; whence the name of the 
class " four powers." I have observed in several plants of this class, that 
the two lower males arise, in a few days after the opening of the flower, to 
the same height as the other four, not being mature as soon as the higher 
ones. See note on Gloriosa. All the plants of this class possess similar vir- 
tues; they are termed acrid and antiscorbutic in their raw states, as mustard, 
watercress ; when cultivated and boiled, they become a mild wholesome food, 
as cabbage, turnip. 

There was formerly a volcano on the Peak of Tenerif, which became 
extinct about the year 1684. Philos. Trans. In many excavations of the 
mountain, much below the summit, there is now found abundance of ice at 
all seasons. Tench's Expedition to Botany-Bay, p. 12. Are these congela- 
tions in consequence of the daily solution of the hoar-frost, which is produced 
on the summit during the night ? 

Viscum. 1. 258. Misletoe. Two houses. This plant never grows upon 
'.he ground ; the foliage is yellow, *nd the berries milk-white: the berries are 



Canto I. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 27 

—Scorning the sordid soil, aloft she springs, 

Shakes her white plume, and claps her golden wings ; 260 

High o'er the fields of boundless ether roves, 

And seeks amid the clouds her soaring loves f 

" StretchM on her mossy couch, in trackless deeps, 
Queen of the corol groves, Zostera sleeps ; 
The silvery sea-weed matted round her bed, 265 

And distant surges murmuring o'er her head.— 
High in the flood her azure dome ascends, 
The crystal arch on crystal columns bends ; 
Roof'd with translucent shell the turrets blaze, 
And far in ocean dart their colour'd rays ; 270 

O'er the white floor successive shadows move, 
As rise and break the ruffled waves above.— 
Around the nymph her mermaid-trains repair, 
And weave with orient pearl her radiant hair; 



so viscous as to serve for bird-lime ; and when they fall, adhere to the branches 
of the tree on which the plant grows, and strike root into its bark, or are car- 
ried to distant trees by birds. The Tillandsia, or wild pine, grows on other 
trees, like the misletoe, but takes little or no nourishment from them, having 
large buckets in its leaves to collect and retain the rain-water. See note on 
Dypsacus. The mosses, which grow on the bark of trees, take much nourish- 
ment from them ; hence it is observed, that trees which are annually cleared 
from moss by a brush, grow nearly twice as fast. (Philos. Trans.) In the cider 
countries the peasants brush their apple-trees annually. See Epidendrum. 

Zostera. 1. 264. Grass-wrack. Class, Feminine Males. Order, many 
Males It grows at the bottom of the sea, and, rising to the surface when 
in flower, covers many leagues; and is driven, at length, to the shore. 
During its time of floating on the sea, numberless animals live on the under 
surface of it; and, being specifically lighter than the sea-water, or being 
repelled by it, have legs placed, as it were, on their backs, for the purpose 
of walking under it, as the Scylloea. See Barbut's Genera Vermium. It 
seems necessary that the marriages of plants should be celebrated in the 
open air, either because the powder of the anther, or the mucilage on the 
stigma, or the reservoir of honey, might receive injury from the water. 
Mr. Needham observed, that in the ripe dust of every flower, examined by 
the microscope, some vesicles are perceived, from which a fluid had escaped; 
and that those which still retain it, explode if they be wetted, like an eolo- 
pile suddenly exposed to a strong heac. These observations have been ve- 
rified by Spallanzani and others. Hence rainy seasons make a scarcity of 
-grain, or hinder its fecundity, by bursting the pollen before it arrives at the 
moist stigma of the flower. Spallanzani's Dissertations, vol. ii. p. 321. Thus 
the flowers of the male Vallisneria are produced under water, and, when 
ripe, detach themselves from the plant, and, rising to the surface, are wafted 
by the air to the female flowers. See Vallisneria. 



«fl BOTANIC GARDEN. Part II. 

With rapid fins she cleaves the watery way, %T5 

Shoots like a silver meteor up to dav ; 
Sounds a loud conch, convokes a scaly band, 
Her sea-born lovers, and ascends the strand. 

" E'en round the pole the flames of Love aspire, 
And icy bosoms feel the secret fire !— 280 

Cradled in snow, and fann'd by arctic air, 
Shines, gentle Barometz ! thy golden hair ; 
Rooted in earth each cloven hoof descends. 
And round and round her flexile neck she bends ; 
Crops the grey coral moss, and hoary thyme, 285 

Or laps with rosy tongue the melting rime ; 
Eyes with mute tenderness her distant dam, 
Or seems to bleat, a Vegetable Lamb. 
> — So, warm and buoyant in his oily mail, 
Gambols on seas of ice the unwieldy Whale ; 290 

Barometz. 1. 282. Polypodium Barometz. Tartarian Lamb. Clandes- 
tine Marriage. This species of Fern is a native of China, with a decumbent 
root, thick, and every where covered with the most soft and dense wool, 
intensely yellow. Lin. Spec. Plant. 

This curious stem is sometimes pushed out of the ground in its horizontal 
situation, by some of the inferior branches of the root, so as to give it some 
jresemblance to a Lamb standing on four legs; and has been said to destroy 
all other plants in its vicinity. Sir Hans Sloane describes it under the name 
of Tartarian Lamb, and has given a print of it. Philos. Trans, abridged, 
vol. ii. p. 646 ; but thinks some art had been used to give it an animal appear- 
ance. Dr. Hunter, in his edition of the Terra of Evelyn, has given a more 
curious print of it, much resembling a sheep. The down is used in India ex- 
ternally for stopping hemorrhages, and is called golden moss. 

The thick downy clothing of some vegetables seems designed to protect 
them from the injuries of cold, like the wool of animals. Those bodies 
which are bad conductors of electricity, are also bad conductors of heat, as 
glass, wax, air. Hence, either of the two former of these may be melted 
by the flame of a blow-pipe very near the fingers which hold it, without burn- 
ing them ; and the last, by being confined on the surface of animal bodies, 
in the interstices of their fur or wool, prevents the escape of their natural 
■warmth ; to which should be added, that the hairs themselves arc imperfect 
conductors. The fat or oil of whales, and other northern animals, seems de- 
signed for the same purpose of preventing the too sudden escape ot the heat 
of the body in cold climates. Snow protects vegetables which are covered 
by it from cold, both because it is a bad conductor of heat itself, and con- 
tains much air in its pores. If a piece of camphor bo immersed in a snow- 
ball, except one extremity of it, on setting fire to this, as the snow melts, the 
■water becomes absorbed into the surrounding snow by capillary attraction ; 
on this account, when living animals are buried in snow, they arc not mois- 
tened by it ; but the cavity enlarges as the snow dissolves, affording ther.t 
both a dry and warm habitation. 



J?/,- c 7 r, ■(/„/</,/„ ^zvnj^ 



~,%k 



idsl^ 




. Jja/vjvetz ^ 



Canto I. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 29 

Wide-waving fins round floating islands urge 

His bulk gigantic through the troubled surge ; 

With hideous yawn the flying shoals he seeks, 

Or clasps with fringe of horn his mass}' cheeks ; 

Lifts o'er the tossing wave his nostrils baie, 295 

And spouts pellucid columns into air ; 

The silvery arches catch the setting beams, 

And o-ansient rainbows tremble o'er the streams. 

" Weak with nice sense, the chaste Mimosa stands, 
From each rude touch withdraws her timid hands ; 300 

Oft as light clouds o'erpass the summer-glade, 
Alarm'd she trembles at the moving shade ; 
And feels, alive through all her tender form, 
The whisper'd murmurs of the gathering storm ; 
Shuts her sweet eye-lids to approaching night, 305 

And hails with freshen'd charms the rising light. 
Veil'd with gay decency and modest pride, 
Slow to the mosque she moves an eastern bride j 
There her soft vows unceasing love record, 
Queen of the bright seraglio of her Lord. — • 310 

So sinks or rises with the changeful hour 
The liquid silver in its glassy tower. 

Mimosa. 1.299. The sensitive plant. Of the class Polygamy, one house. 
Naturalists have not explained the immediate cause of the collapsing of the 
sensitive plant ; the leaves meet and close in the night during the sleep of the 
plant, or when exposed to much cold in the day-time, in the same manner as 
when they are affected by external violence, folding their upper surfaces to- 
gether, and in part over each other, like scales or tiles, so as to expose as- 
little of the upper surface as may be to the air ; but do not, indeed, collapse 
quite so far, since I have found, when touched in the night during their sleep. 
they fall still further ; especially when touched on the foot-stalks between the 
stems and the leaflets, which seems to be their most sensitive or irritable 
part. Now, as their situation after being exposed to external violence re- 
sembles their sleep, but with a greater degree of collapse, may it not be owing 
to a numbness or paralysis consequent to too violent irritation, like the faint- 
ings of animals from pain or fatigue? I kept a sensitive plant in a dark room 
till some hours after day-break : its leaves and leaf-stalks were collapsed as in 
its most profound sleep, and on exposing it to the light, above twenty minutes 
passed before the plant was thoroughly awake and had quite expanded itself. 
During the night the upper or smoother surfaces of the leaves are appressed 
together ; this would seem to show that the office of this surface of the leaf 
was to expose the fluids of the plant to the light as well as to the air. See 
note on Helianthus. Many flowers close up their petals during the night. 
See note on vegetable respiration in Part I. 



30 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part II. 

So turns the needle to the pole it loves, 
With fine librations quivering as it moves. 

" All wan and shivering in the leafless glade 315 

The sad Anemone reclined her head ; 
Grief on her cheeks had paled the roseate hue, 
And her sweet eye-lids dropp'd with pearly dew. 
— " See from bright regions, borne on odorous gales, 
" The Swallow, herald of the summer, sails; 320 



Anemone. 1. 316. Many males, many females. Pliny says this flower 
never opens its petals but when the wind blows; whence its name: it has 
properly no calix, but two or three sets of petals, three in each set, which 
are folded over the stamens and pistil in a singular and beautiful manner, 
and diflfers also from ranunculus in not having a melliferous pore on the claw 
of each petal. 

The Swallow. 1.320. There is a wonderful conformity between the ve- 
getation of some plants, and the arrival of certain birds of passage. Lin- 
naeus observes, that the wood anemone blows in Sweden on the arrival of the 
swallow ; and the marsh-marigold, Caltha, when the cuckoo sings. Near 
the same coincidence was observed in England by Stillingfleet. The word 
Coccux in Greek signifies both a young fig and a cuckoo, which is supposed 
to have arisen from the coincidence of their appearance in Greece. Perhaps 
a similar coincidence of appearance in some part of Asia gave occasion to the 
story of the love of the rose and nightingale, so much celebrated by the 
eastern poets. See Dianthus. The times, however, of the appearance of 
vegetables in the spring seem occasionally to be influenced by their acquired 
habits, as well as by their sensibility to heat ; for the roots of potatoes, 
onions, &c. will germinate with much less heat in the spring than in the 
autumn; as is easily observable where these roots are stored for use; and 
hence malt is best made in the spring. 2d. The grains and roots brought 
from more southern latitudes germinate here sooner than those which are 
brought from more northern ones, owing to their acquired habits. Fordyce 
on Agriculture. 3d. It was observed by one of the scholars of Linnaeus, that 
the apple-trees sent from hence to New-England blossomed for a lew years 
too early for that climate, and bore no fruit ; but afterwards learnt to accom- 
modate themselves to their new situation. (Kalm's Travels.) 4th. The 
parts of animals become mote sensible to heat after having been previously 
exposed to ccld, as our hands glow on coming into the house after having 
held snow in them: this seems to happen to vegetables ; for vines in grape- 
houses, which have been exposed to the winter's cold, will become forwarder 
and more vigorous than those which have been kept during the winter in the 
hotise. (Kennedy on Gardening.) This accounts for the very rapid vegeta- 
tion in the northern latitudes after the solution of the snows. 

The increase of the irritability of plants in respect to heat, after having 
been previously exposed to cold, is further illustrated by an experiment of 
Dr. Walker's. He cut apertures into a birch-tree at different heights; and 
on the 26th of March some of these apertures bled, or oozed with the sap- 
juice, when the thermometer was at 39; which same apertures did not bleed 
on the 13th of March, when the thermometer was at 44. The reason of 
this, I apprehend, was, because, on the night of the 25th the thermometer 



Canto L LOVES OF THE PLANTS, 31 

" Breathe, gentle Air! from cherub-lips impart 

" Thy balmy influence to my anguish'd heart ; 

" Thou, whose soft voice calls forth the tender blooms, 

* Whose pencil paints them, and whose breath perfumes ; 

" O ! chase the Fiend of Frost, with leaden mace, 325 

" Who seals in death-like sleep my hapless race ; 

" Melt his hard heart, release his iron hand, 

" And give my ivory petals to expand. 

" So may each bud, that decks the brow of spring, 

" Shed all its incense on thy wafting wing !" — 330 

To her fond prayer propitious Zephyr yields, 

Sweeps on his sliding shall through azure fields, 

O'er her fair mansion waves his whispering wand, 

An J gives her ivory petals to expand ; 

Gives with new life her filial train to rise, 335 

And hail with kindling smiles the genial skies. 

So shines the Nymph in beauty's blushing pride, 

When Zephyr wafts her deep calash aside.; 

Tears with rude kiss her bosom's gauzy veil, 

And flings the fluttering 'kerchief to the gale. 340 

So bright, the folding canopy undrawn, 

Glides the gilt Landau o'er the velvet lawn, 

Of beaux and belles displays the glittering throng, 

And soft airs fan them, as they roll along. 

" Where frowning Snowden bends his dizzy brow 345 

O'er Conway, listening to the surge below ; 
Retiring Lichen climbs the topmost stone, 
And drinks the aerial solitude alone.— 
Bright shine the stars, unnumber'd, o'er her heady 
And the cold moon-beam gilds her flinty bed : 350 

was as low as 34 ; whereas, on the night of the 12th it was at 41 ; though 
the ingenious author ascribes it to another cause. Trans, of the Royal Soc, 
of Edinburgh, vol. i. p. 19. 

Lichen 1. 347. Calcareum. Liver-wort. Clandestine Marriage. This 
plant is the first that vegetates on naked rocks, covering them with a kind of 
tapestry, and draws its nourishment, perhaps, chiefly from the air; after it 
perishes, earth enough is left for other mosses to root themselves ; and after 
some ages, a soil is produced sufficient for the growth of more succulent and 
large vegetables. In this manner, perhaps, the whole earth has been gradu- 
ally covered with vegetation, after it was raised out of the primeval ocean by 
subterraneous fires. 



32 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part II 

While round the rifted rocks hoarse whirlwinds breathe, 

And dark with thunder sail the clouds beneath.—* 

The Bteepy path her plighted swain pursues, 

And tracks her light step o'er the imprinted dews ; 

Delighted Hymen gives his torch to blaze, 355 

Winds round the craggs, and lights the mazy ways ; 

Sheds o'er their secret vows his influence chaste, 

And decks with roses the admiring waste. 

" High in the front of heaven when Sirius glares, 
And o'er Britannia shakes his fiery hairs ; 360 

When no soft shower descends, no dew distills, 
Her wave-worn channels dry, and mute her rills ; 
When droops the sickening herb, the blossom fades, 
And parch'd earth gapes beneath the withering glades ; 
— With languid step fair Dypsaca retreats, 365 

" Fall, gentle dews !" the fainting nymph repeats, 
Seeks the low dell, and in the sultry shade 
Invokes, in vain, the Naiads to her aid. — 
Tour sylvan vouths in crystal goblets bear 

The untasted treasure to the grateful fair ; 370 

Pleased, from their hands with modest grace she sips, 
And the cool wave reflects her coral lips. 



Dypsacus. 1. 365. Teasel. One female and four males. There is a cup 
around every joint of the stem of this plant, which contains from a spoonful 
to half a pint of water; and serves both for the nutriment of the plant in 
dry seasons, and to prevent insects from creeping up to devour its seed. See 
Silene. The Tillandsia, or wild pine of the West-Indies, has every leaf 
terminated near the stalk with a hallow bucket, which contains from half a 
pint to a quart of water. Dampier's Voyage to Campeachy. Dr. Sloane 
mentions one kind of aloe furnished with leaves, which, like the wild pine 
and Banana, hold water; and thence afford necessary refreshment to travel- 
lers in hot countries. Nepenthes has a bucket, for the same purpose, at the 
end of every leaf. Burm. Zeyl. 42. 17. 

Silphium perfoliatum has a cup round every joint to reserve water after 
rain. It rises during the summer twelve or fourteen feet high on a slender 
stem, whicli is square, and thus is stronger to resist the winds than if it had 
been made round with the same quantity of materials. 

The most curious plant of this kind is the Sarracenia purpurea, which 
the Nymphcea, an aquatic plant, but catches so mucli water in its 
sessile <.up-lil<e leaves, as to enable it to live on land, a wonderful provision 
re! System. Plant, a Reichard. vol. ii. p. 577. 



Canto I. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 

" With nice selection modest Rubia blends 
Her vermil dves, and o'er the cauldron bends ; 
Warm, mid the rising steam, the Beauty glows, 
As blushes in a mist the dewy rose. 
With chemic art four favour'd youths aloof 
Stain the white fleece, or stretch the tinted woof ; 
O'er Age's cheek the warmth of youth diffuse, 
Or deck the pale-eyed nvmph in roseate hues. 
So when Medea to exulting Greece 
From plundered Colchis bore the golden fleece, 
On the loud shore a magic pile she raised, 
The cauldron bubbled, and the faggots blazed; 
Pleased, on the boiling wave old iEsoNr swims, 
And feels new vigour stretch his swelling limbs ; 



Rubia. 1. 373. Madder. Four males and one female. This plant is cul- 
tivated in very large quantities for dying red. If mixed with the food of 
young, pigs or chickens, it colours their bones red. If they are fed alternate 
fortnights with a mixture of madder, and with their usual food alone, their 
bones will consist of concentric circles of white and red. Eelchier. Phil. 
Trans. 1736. Animals fed with madder, for the purpose of these experi- 
ments, were found, upon dissection, to have thinner gall. Comment, de 
*ebus. Lipsix. This circumstance is worth farther attention. The colouring 
materials of vegetables, like those which serve the purpose of tanning, var- 
nishing, and the various medical purposes, do not seem essential to the life 
•f the plant ; but seem given it as a defence against the depredations of in- 
sects, or other animals, to whom these materials are nauseous or deleterious. 
The colours of insects, and many smaller animals, contribute to conceal 
them from the larger ones which prey upon them. Caterpillars, which 
feed on leaves, are generally green ; and earth-worms the colour of the earth. 
%vhich they inhabit ; butterflies, which frequent flowers, are coloured like 
them ; small birds, which frequent hedges, have greenish backs like the 
leaves, and light coloured bellies like the sky, and are hence less visible to 
the hawk, who passes under them or over them. Those birds which are 
much amongst flowers, as the goldfinch (Fringilla Carduellis), are furnished 
with vivid colours. The lark, partridge, hare, are the colour of dry vegeta- 
bles, or earth on which they rest. And frogs vary their colour with the 
mud of the streams which they frequent ; and those which live on trees are 
green. Fish, which are generally suspended in water, and swallows, which 
are generally suspended in air, have their backs the colour of the distant 
ground, and their bellies of the sky. In the colder climates many of these 
become white during the existence of the snows. Hence there is apparent 
design in the colours of animals, whilst those of vegetables seem consequent 
to the other properties of the materials which possess them. 

Pleased, on the boiling wave. I. 385. The story of .flison becoming young, 
from the medicated batli of Medea, seems to have been intended to teach the 
efficacy of warm bathing in retarding the progress of old age. The worfls: 
relaxation and bracing, which are generally thought expressive of the effects 
of warm and cold bathing, are mechanical terms, properly applied to drums 

Part II. E 



BOTANIC GARDEN. Part IK 

Through his thrill'd nerves forgotten ardours dart, 

And warmer eddies circle round his heart ; 

Widi softer fires his kindling eye-balls glow, 

And darker tresses wanton round his brow. 390 

° Where Java's isle, horizon'd with the floods, 
Lifts to the skies her canopy of woods ; 
Pleased Epidendra climbs the waving pines, 
And high in heaven the intrepid beauty shines, 
Gives to the tropic breeze her radiant hair, 39 9 

Drinks the bright shower, and feeds upon the air. 
Her brood, delighted, stretch their callow wings, 
As poised aloft their pendent cradle swings, 
Eye the warm sun, the spicy zephyr breathe, 
And gaze unenvious on the world beneath. 40C 

" As dash the waves on India's breezy strand, 
Her flush'd cheek press'd upon her lily hand, 
Vallisner sits, up-turns her tearful eyes, 
Calls her lost lover, and upbraids the skies ; 

Or strings; but arc only metaphors when applied to the effects of cold or 
warm bathing on animal bodies. The immediate cause of old age seems to 
reside in the inirritability of the finer vessels, or parts of our system ; hence 
these cease to act, and collapse, or become homy or bony. The warm bath 
is peculiarly adapted to prevent these circumstances by its increasing our irri- 
tability, and by moistening and softening the skin, and the extremities of the 
finer vessels, which terminate in it. To those who are past the meridian of 
life, and have dry skins, and begin to be emaciated, the warm bath, for 
half an hour twice a week, I believe to be eminently serviceable in retarding 
the advances of age. 

Ephlendrum fios aeris. 1 393. Of the class of gynondria, or feminine males. 
This parasite plant is found in Java, and is said to live on air without taking 
root in the trees on which it grows; and its Mowers resemble spiders. Syst. 
Veg. a Heichard. vol. iv. p. 35. By this curious similitude the bees and but- 
terflies are supposed to be deterred from plundering the nectaries. Sec Visca. 

Vullisncria. I. 403. This extraordinary plant is of the class Two House;. 
It is found in the East-Indies, in Norway, and various parts of Italy. Lin. 
Spec. Plant. They have their roots at the bottom of the Rhone ; the dowers 
of the female plant float on the surface of the water, and are furnished with 
an clastic spiral stalk, which extends, or contracts, as the water rises and 
falls. This rise or fall, from the rapid descent of the river, and the moun- 
tain torrents which flow into it, often amounts to main feel in a few hours. 
The flowers of the male plant arc produced under water, and as soon as 
their farina, or dust, is mature, they detach themselves from the plant, and 
surface, continue to flourish, and are wafted by the air, or borne 
unts to the female flowers, In this resembling those tribes of in- 




( "Iff///. '■////'/'//? l y//rf///i 



Canto I. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. SS 

For him she breathes the silent sigh, forlorn, 405 

Each setting day ; for him each rising morn.— 

" Bright orbs, that light yon high ethereal plain, 

" Or bathe your radiant tresses in the main ; 

" Pale moon, that silver'st o'er Night's sable brow ; 

" For ye were witness to his parting vow ! 41€ 

" Ye shelving rocks, dark waves, and sounding shore,— 

" Ye echoed sweet the tender words he swore !— 

M Can stars or seas the sails of love retain ? 

' A O guide nay wanderer to my arms again !" 

" Her buoyant skiff intrepid Ulva guides, 415 

And seeks her Lord amid the trackless tides ; 

eects where the males, at certain seasons, acquire wings, but not the females, 
as ants, Coccus, Lampyris, Phalaena, Brumata, Lichanella. These male 
flowers are in such numbers, though very minute, as frequently to cover the 
surface of the river to considerable extent. See Families of Plants, translated 
from Linnaeus, p. 677. 

Uha. 1. 415. Clandestine Marriage. This kind of sea-weed is buoyed up 
by bladders of air, which are formed in the duplicatures of its leaves, and 
forms immense floating fields of vegetation ; the young ones, branching out 
from the larger ones, and borne on similar little air-vessels. It is also found 
in the warm baths of Patavia, where the leaves are formed into curious cells 
or labyrinths, for the purpose of floating on the water. See Ulva labyrinthi- 
formis Lin. Spec. Plant. The air contained in these cells was found by Dt% 
Priestley to be sometimes purer than common air, and sometimes less pure ; 
the air-bladders of fish seem to be similar organs, and serve to render them 
buoyant in the water. In some of these, as in the Cod and Haddock, a red 
membrane, consisting of a great number of leaves or duplicatures, is found 
within the air-bag, which probably secretes this air from the blood of the ani- 
mal. (Monro. Physiol, of Fish, p. 28.) To determine whether this air, 
when first separated from the blood of the animal or plant, be dephlogisti- 
cated air, is worthy inquiry. The bladder-sena (Colutea), and bladder-nut 
(Staphykea), have their seed-vessels distended with air; the Ketmia has the 
upper joint of the stem immediately under the receptacle of the flower much 
distended with air : these seem to be analogous to the air-vessel at the broad 
end of the egg, and may, probably, become less pure as the seed ripens : 
some, which I tried, had the purity of the surrounding atmosphere. The air 
at the broad end of the egg is probably an organ serving the purpose of 
respiration to the young chick ; some of whose vessels are spread upon it like 
a placenta, or permeate it. Many are of opinion that even the placenta of 
the human fetus, and cotyledons of quadrupeds, are respiratory organs rather 
than nutritious ones. 

The air in the hollow stems of grasses, and of some umbelliferous plants, 
bears analogy to the air in the quills, and in some of the bones of birds ; sup- 
plying the place of the pith, which shrivels up after it has performed its 
office of protruding the young stem or feather. Some of these cavities of the 
bones are said to communicate with the lungs in birds. Phil. Trans. 
The air-bladders of fish are nicely adapted to their intended purpose; fo£ 



36 BOTANIC GARDEN, Part Ifl 

Her secret vows the Cvprian Queen approves, 

And hovering Halcyons guard her infant-loves ; 

Each in his floating cradle, round they throng, 

And dimpling Ocean bears the fleet along. — 4-20 

Thus o'er the waves, which gently bend and sweD, 

Fair Galatea steers her silver shell ; 

Her playful Dolphins stretch the silken rein, 

Hear her sweet voice, and glide along the main. 

As round the wild meandering coast she moves, 425 

By gushing rills, rude cliffs, and nodding groves ; 

Each by her pine, the Wood-nymphs wave their locks, 

And wondering Naiads peep amid the rocks : 

Pleased trains of Mermaids rise from coral cells ; 

Admiring Tritons sound their twisted shells ; 43fr 

Charm'd o'er the car pursuing Cupids sweep, 

Their snow-white pinions twinkling in the deep ; 

And, as the lustre of her eye she turns, 

Soft sighs the Gale, and amorous Ocean burns, 

" On Dove's green brink the fair Tremella stood, 435 
And view'd her playful image in the flood i 

though they render them buoyant near the surface, without the labour of 
using their fins, yet, when they rest at greater depths, they are no incon- 
venience, as the increased pressure of the water condenses the air which they 
contain into less space. Thus, if a cork or bladder of air was immersed a 
very great depth in the ocean, it would be so much compressed, as to become 
specifically as heavy as the water, and would remain there. It is probable 
the unfortunate Mr. Day, who was drowned in a diving-ship of his own 
construction, miscarried from not attending to this circumstance : it is proba- 
ble the quantity of air he took down with him, if he descended much lower 
than he expected, was condensed into so small a space as not to render the 
ship buoyant when he endeavoured to ascend. 

Tremella. 1. 435. Clandestine Marriage. I have frequently observed fun- 
jusses of this Genus on old rails, and on the ground, to become a transpa- 
rent jelly, after they had been frozen in autumnal mornings ; which is a curious 
property, and distinguishes them from some other vegetable mucilage ; for It 
have observed that the paste made by boiling wheat-hour in water ceases to 
be adhesive after having been frozen. I suspected that the TremeHa Nostoc, 
or star-jelly, also had been thus produced; but have since been well informed, 
that the Tremella Nostoc is a mucilage voided by Herons after they have 
eaten frogs; hence it has the appearance of having been pressed through a 
hole ; and limbs of frogs are said sometimes to be found amongst it : it is 
always seen upon plains, or by the sides of water, places which HetODS 
generally frequent. 

Some ol the fungusses are so acrid, that a drop of their juice blisters the 
tongue; others intoxicate those who eat them. TheOstiatks, in Siberia, 



Camo I. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 3Y 

To each rude rock, lone dell, and echoing grove, 

Sung the sweet sorrows of her secret love. 

" Oh stay ! — return !" — along the sounding shore 

Crv'd the sad Naiads, — she retum'd no more ! — 440 

Now girt with clouds the sullen Evening frown'd, 

And withering Eurus swept along the ground ; 

The misty moon withdrew her horned light, 

And sunk with Hesper in the skirt of night ; 

No dim electric streams, (the northern dawn) 445 

With meek effulgence quiver'd o'er the lawn ; 

No star benignant shot one transient ray 

To guide or light the wanderer on her way. 

Round the dark craggs the murmuring whirlwinds blow, 

Woods groan above, and waters roar below ; 450 

As o'er the steeps with pausing foot she moves, 

The pitying Drvads shriek amid their groves. 

She flies — she stops — she pants — she looks behind, 

And hears a demon howl in every wind. 

— As the bleak blast unfurls her fluttering vest, 455 

Cold beats the snow upon her shuddering breast ; 

Through her numb'd limbs the chill sensations dart, 

And the keen ice-bolt trembles at her heart. 

" I sink, I fall ! oh, help me, help !" she cries, 

Her stiffening tongue the unfinished sound denies ; 460 

Tear after tear adown her cheek succeeds, 

And pearls of ice bestrew the glittering meads j 



use them for the latter purpose ; one fungus of the species Agaricus Musca- 
rum, eaten raw, or the decoction of three of them, produces intoxication for 
12 or 16 hours. History of Russia, vol. i. Nichols. 1780. As all acrid plants 
become less so, if exposed to a boiling heat, it is probable the common mush- 
jroom may sometimes disagree from not being sufficiently stewed. The Osti- 
acks blister their skin by a fungus found on Birch-trees; and use the Agaricus 
officin. for Soap. lb. 

There was a dispute whether the fungusses should be classed in the animal 
or vegetable department. Their animal taste in cookery, and their animal 
smell when burnt, together with their tendency to putrefaction, insomuch 
that the Phallus impudicus has gained the name of stink-horn ; and, lastly, 
their growing and continuing healthy without light, as the Licoperdon tuber 
or truffle, and the fungus vinosus or mucor in dark cellars, and the esculent 
mushrooms on beds covered thick with straw, would seem to show that they 
approach towards the animals, or make a kind of isthmus, connecting the 
two mighty kingdoms of animal and of vegetable nature. 



58 BOTANIC GARDEN. p AftX II, 

Congealing snows her lingering feet surround, 

Arrest her flight, and root her to the ground ; 

With suppliant arms she pours the silent prayer ; 465 

Her suppliant arms hang crystal in the air ; 

Pellucid films her shivering neck o'erspread, 

Seal her mute lips, and silver o'er her head ; 

Veil her pale bosom, glaze her lifted hands, 

And, shrined in ice, the beauteous statue stands. 470 

—Dove's azure nymphs, on each revolving year, 

For fair Tremella shed the tender tear ; 

With rush-wove crowns in sad procession move, 

And sound the sorrowing shell to hapless love." 

Here paused the Muse,— across the darketi'd pole 47-5 

Sail the dim clouds, the echoing thunders roll ; 
The trembling Wood-nymphs, as the tempest lowers^ 
X.ead the gay Goddess to their inmost bowers, 
Hang the mute lyre the laurel shade beneath, 
And round her temples bind the myrtle wreath-. 
— Now the light swallow, with her airy brood, 
Skims the green meadow, and the dimpled flood ; 
Xioud shrieks the lone thrush from his leafless thorn., 
The alarmed beetle sounds his bugle horn ; 
Each pendant spider winds with fingers fine 48£ 

His ravel'd clue, and climbs along the line ; 
Gay Gnomes in glittering circles stand aloof, 
Beneath a spreading mushroom's fretted roof: 
Swift bees, returning, seek their waxen cells, 
And Sylphs cling, quivering, in the lily's bells : 49fc 

Through the still air descend the genial showers. 
And pearley rain-drops deck the laughing flower:;. 



INTERLUDE I, 



Bookseller. Y OUR verses, Mr. Botanist, consist of pure 
description ; I hope there is sense in the notes. 

Poet. I am only a flower-painter, or occasionally attempt a. 
landskip ; and leave the human figure, with the subjects of" 
history, to abler artists. 

B. It is well to know what subjects are within the limits of 
your pencil ; many have failed of success from the want of this 
self-knowledge. But pray tell me, what is the essential differ- 
ence between Poetry and Prose ? is it solely the melody or 
measure of the language ? 

P. I think not solely ; for some prose has its melody, and 
even measure. And good verses, well spoken in a language 
unknown to the hearer, are not easily to be distinguished from 
good prose. 

B. Is it the sublimity, beauty, or novelty of the sentiments ? 

P. Not so ; for sublime sentiments are often better ex- 
pressed in prose. Thus when Warwick, in one of the plays o£ 
Shakespeare, is left wounded on the field, after the loss of the 
battle, and his friend says to him, " O, could you but fly!" 
what can be more sublime than this answer, " Why, then I 
would not fly." No measure of verse, I imagine, could add 
dignity to this sentiment. And it would be easy to select ex- 
amples of the beautiful or new from prose writers, which, I 
suppose, no measure of verse could improve. 

B. In what, then, consists the essential difference between 
Poetry and Prose ? 

P. Next to the measure of the language, the principal dis- 
tinction appears to me to consist in this ; that Poetry admits of 
but few words expressive of very abstracted ideas, whereas 
Prose abounds with them. And as our ideas derived from 
visible objects are more distinct than those derived from the 
objects of our other senses, the words expressive of these ideas 



40 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part II, 

belonging to vision, make up the principal part of poetic lan- 
guage ; that is, the Poet writes principally to the eye, the 
Prose writer uses more abstracted terms, Mr. Pope has writ- 
ten a bad verse in the Windsor Forest : 

" And Rennet swift for silver Eels renawn'd." 

The word renown'd does not present the idea of a visible ob- 
ject to the mind, and is thence prosaic. But change this line 
thus: 

" And Kennet swift, -where silver Graylings play," 

and it becomes poetry, because the scenery is then brought be* 
fore the eye. 

B. This may be done in prose. 

P. And when it is done in a single word, it animates the 
prose; so it is more agreeable to read in Mr. Gibbon's History, 
" Germany was at this time overshadowed with extensive 
forests," than Germany was at this time full of extensive 
forests. But where this mode of expression occurs too fre- 
quently, the prose approaches to poetry : and in graver works, 
where we expect to be instructed rather than amused, it be- 
comes tedious and impertinent. Some parts of Mr. Burke's 
eloquent orations become intricate and enervated by superfluity 
of poetic ornament ; which quantity of ornament would have 
been agreeable in a poem, where much ornament is expected. 

B. Is, then, the office of Poetry only to amuse ? 

P. The Muses are young Ladies ; we expect to see them 
dressed ; though not like some modern beauties, widi so much 
gauze and feather, that " the Lady herself is the least part of 
her." There are, however, didactic pieces of poetry, which 
are much admired, as the Georgics of Virgil, Mason's Eng- 
lish Garden, Haley's Epistles ; nevertheless, Science is best 
delivered in Prose, as its mode of reasoning is from stricter 
analogies than metaphors or similics. 

B. Do not personifications and Allegories distinguish Poe- 
try? 

P. These are other arts of bringing objects before the eye , 
or of expressing sentiments in the language of vision ; and are. 
: to the pen than the pencil. 






INTERLUDE I. 41 

B. That is strange, when you have just said they are used 
to bring their objects before the eye. 

P. In poetry the personification or allegoric figure is gene- 
rally indistinct, and therefore does not strike us so forcibly as to 
make us attend to its improbability ; but in painting, the figures 
being all much more distinct, their improbability becomes ap- 
parent, and seizes our attention to it. Thus the person of 
Concealment is very indistinct, and therefore does not compel 
us to attend to its improbability, in the following beautiful lines 
of Shakespeare : 

" She never told her love ; 

Bu'. let Concealment, like a worm i' th' bud, 
Feed on her damask cheek." 

But in these lines below the person of Reason obtrudes itself 
into our company, and becomes disagreeable by its distinct- 
ness, and consequent improbability : 

" To Reason I flew, and intreated her aid, 

Who paused on my case, and each circumstance weigh'd ; 

Then gravely reply'd, in return to my prayer, 

That Hebe was fairest of all that were fair. 

That's a truth, reply'd I, I've no need to be taught, 

I came to you, Reason, to find out a fault. 

If that's all, says Reason, return as you came, 

To find fault with Hebe would forfeit my name." 

Allegoric figures are, on this account, in general, less manage- 
able in painting and in statuary than in poetry ; and can seldom 
be introduced in the two former arts in company with natural 
figures, as is evident from die ridiculous effect of many of the 
paintings of Rubens, in the Luxemburgh gallery ; and for this 
reason, because their improbability becomes more striking 
when there are the figures of real persons by their side to com- 
pare them with. 

Mrs. Angelica KaufFman, well apprised of this circum- 
stance, has introduced no mortal figures amongst her Cupids 
and her Graces. And the great Roubiliac, in his unrivalled 
monument of Time and Fame struggling for the trophy of 
General Wade, has onlv hung up a medallion of the head of 
the hero of the piece. There are, however, some allegoric 

Part II. F 



m BOTANIC GARDEN. Part IL 

figures, which wc have so often heard described or seen de- 
lineated, that we almost forget that they do not exist in com- 
mon life ; and thence view them without astonishment ; as the 
figures of the heathen mythology, of angels, devils, death, and 
time ; and almost believe them to be realities, even when they 
are mixed with representations of the natural forms of man. 
Whence I conclude, that a certain degree of probability is 
necessary to prevent us from revolting with distaste from un- 
natural images, unless we are otherwise so much interested in 
the contemplation of them as not to perceive their improba- 
bility. 

B. Is this reasoning about degrees of probability just ?— « 
When Sir Joshua Reynolds, who is unequalled both in the 
theory and practice of his art, and who is a great master of the 
pen as well as the pencil, has asserted, in a discourse delivered 
to the Royal Academy, December 11, 1786, that " the higher 
styles of painting, like the higher kinds of the Drama, do not 
aim at any thing like deception ; or have any expectation that 
the spectators should think the events there represented are 
teally passing before them." And he then accuses Mr. Field- 
ing of bad judgment, when he attempts to compliment Mr. 
Garrick in one of his novels, by introducing an ignorant man, 
mistaking the representation of a scene in Hamlet for a reality ; 
and thinks, because he was an ignorant man, he was less liable 
to make such a mistake. 

P. It is a metaphysical question, and requires more atten- 
tion than Sir Joshua has bestowed upon it. — You will allow 
that we are perfectly deceived in our dreams ; and that even in 
our waking reveries, we are often so much absorbed in the 
contemplation of what passes in our imaginations, that, for a 
while, we do not attend to the lapse of time, or to our own 
locality ; and thus suffer a similar kind of deception, as in our 
dreams, That is, we believe things present before our eyes 
which are not so. 

There are two circumstances which contribute to this com- 
plete deception in our dreams. First, because, in sleep, the 
bf sense are closed or inert, and hence the trains of 
ideas associated in our imaginations are never interrupted or 
red by the irritations of external object;, and cannot, 



INTERLUDE I. 43 

therefore, be contrasted with our sensations. On this account, 
though we are affected with a variety of passions in our dreams, 
as anger, love, joy, yet we never experience surprise. For 
surprise is only produced when any external irritations sud- 
denly obtrude themselves, and dissever our passing trains of 
ideas. 

Secondly, because, in sleep, there is a total suspension of 
our voluntary power, both over the muscles of our bodies, and 
the ideas of our minds ; for we neither walk about, nor rea- 
son in complete sleep. Hence, as the trains of our ideas are 
passing in our imaginations in dreams, we cannot compare 
them with our previous knowledge of things, as we do in our 
waking hours ; for this is a voluntary exertion, and thus we 
cannot perceive their incongruity. 

Thus we are deprived, in sleep, of the only two means by 
which we can distinguish the trains of ideas passing in our 
imaginations, from those excited by our sensations ; and are 
led by their vivacity to believe them to belong to the latter. 
For the vivacity of these trains of ideas, passing in the ima- 
gination, is greatly increased by the causes above-mentioned ; 
that is, by their not being disturbed or dissevered either by the 
appulses of external bodies, as in surprise, or by our voluntary 
exertions in comparing them with our previous knowledge cf 
things, as in reasoning upon them, 

B. Now to apply. 

P. When, by the art of the Painter or Poet, a train of ideas 
is suggested to our imaginations, which interests us so much 
by the pain or pleasure it affords, that we cease to attend to 
the irritations of common external objects, and cease also to 
use any voluntary efforts to compare these interesting trains of 
ideas with our previous knowledge of things, a complete re- 
verie is produced: during which time, however short, if it be 
but for a moment, the objects themselves appear to exist before 
us. This, I think, has been called, by an ingenious critic, 
" the ideal presence" of such objects. (Elements of Criticism 
by Lord Kaimes). And in respect to the compliment in- 
tended by Mr. Fielding to Mr. Garrick, it would seem tha': 
an ignorant rustic at the play of Hamlet, who has some previ- 
ous belief in the appearance of Ghosts, would sooner be liable 



44 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part II. 

to full into a reverie, and continue in it longer than one who 
possessed more knowledge of the real nature of things, and 
had a greater facility of exercising his reason. 

B. It must require great art in the Painter or Poet to pro- 
duce this kind of deception. 

P. The matter must be interesting from its sublimity, beauty, 
or novelty ; this is the scientific part ; and the art consists in 
bringing these distinctly before the eye, so as to produce (as 
above-mentioned) the ideal presence of the object, in which 
the great Shakespeare particularly excels. 

B. Then it is not of any consequence whether the repre- 
sensations correspond with nature ? 

P. Not if they so much interest the reader or spectator as 
to induce the reverie above described. Nature may be seen 
in the market-place, or at the card-table ; but we expect some- 
thing more than this in the plav-house or picture-room. The 
farther the artist recedes from nature, the greater novelty he 
is likely to produce ; if he rises above nature, he produces the 
sublime ; and beauty is probably a selection and new combina- 
tion of her most agreeable parts. Yourself will be sensible of 
the truth of this doctrine, by recollecting over in your mind 
the works of three of our celebrated artists. Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds has introduced sublimity even into his portraits ; we ad- 
mire the representation of persons, whose reality we should 
have passed by unnoticed. Mrs. Angelica KaufFman attracts 
our eyes with beauty, which, I suppose, no where exists ; cer- 
tainly few Grecian faces are seen in this country. And the 
daring pencil of Fuseli transports us beyond the boundaries of 
nature, and ravishes us with the charm of the most interesting 
novelty. And Shakespeare, who excels in all these t 
so far captivates the spectator, as to make him unmindful of 
every kind of violation of time, place, or existence. As, at 
the first appearance of the Ghost of Hamlet, " bis ear must 
be dull as the fat. weed which roots itself on Lethe's brink," 
who can attend to the improbability of the exhibition. So, in 
many scenes of the Tempest, we perpetually believe the anion 
before our eyes, and relapse, with somewhat of dis- 
taste, into common life, at the intervals of the representation* 

B. I suppose a poet of less ability would find such 
machinery difficult and cumbersome to man 



INTERLUDE I. 45 

P. Just so, we should be shocked at the apparent im- 
probabilities. As in the gardens of a Sicilian nobleman, de- 
scribed in Mr. Brydone's and in Mr. Swinbum's travels, there 
are said to be six hundred statues of imaginary monsters, 
which so disgust the spectators, that the state had once a se- 
rious design of destroying them ; and yet the very improbable 
monsters in Ovid's Metamorphoses have entertained the world 
for many centuries. 

B. The monsters in your Botanic Garden, I hope, are of 
the latter kind. 

_P„ The candid reader must determine. 



BOTANIC GARDEN. 



LOVES OF THE PLANTS, 



CANTO II. 

jljLGAIN the Goddess strikes the golden lyre, 
And tunes to wilder notes the warbling wire ; 
"With soft suspended step Attention moves, 
And Silence hovers o'er the listening groves j 
Orb within orb the charmed audience throng, 
And the green vault reverberates the song. 

" Breathe soft, ye Gales !" the fair Carlina cries-, 
" Bear on broad wings your Votress to the skies. 
" How sweetly mutable yon orient hues, 
" As Morn's fair hand her opening roses strews ; 
" How bright, when Iris, blending many a ray, 
** Binds in embroider'd wreath the brow of Day; 



Carlina. 1. 7. Carline Thistle. Of the class Confederate Males. The seeds 
of this and of many other plants of the same class are furnished with a 
plume, by which admirable mechanism they perform long aerial journeys, 
crossing lakes and deserts, and are thus disseminated far from the original 
plant, and have much the appearance of a shuttlecock as they fly. The wings 
are of different construction, some being like a divergent tuft of hairs, others 
are branched like feathers, some are elevated from" the crown of the seed by 
a slender foot-stalk, which gives them a very elegant appearance, others sit 
immediately on the crown of the seed. 

Nature has many other curious vegetable contrivances for the dispersion of 
seeds. See note on Helianthus. But perhaps none of them has more the 
appearance of design than the admirable apparatus of Tillandsia for this pur- 
pose. This plant grows on the branches of trees, like the misletoe, and never 
on the ground ; the seeds are furnished with many long threads on their 
crowns ; which, as they are driven forwards by the winds, wrap round the 
arms of trees, and thus hold them fast till they vegetate. This is very ana- 
logous to the migration of Spiders on the gossamer, who are said to attach 
themselves to the end of a long thread, and rise thus to the tops of trees ox 
buildings, as the accidental breezes carry them. 



48 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part II. 

" Soft, when the pendant Moon with lustres pale 

a O'er heaven's blue arch unfurls her milky veil; 

" While from the north long threads of silver light 1 .' 

" Dart on swift shuttles o'er the tissued night ! 

" Breathe soft, ye Zephyrs ! hear my fervent sighs, 

" Bear on broad wings your Votress to the skies !" 

— Plume over plume in long divergent lines 

On whale-bone ribs the fair Mechanic joins ; 20 

Inlays with eider down the silken strings, 

And weaves in wide expanse Daedalian wings; 

Round her bold sons the waving pennons binds, 

And walks with angel-step upon the winds, 

So on the shoreless air the intrepid Gaul 2 5 

Launch'd the vast concave of his buoyant ball.— 
Journeying on high, the silken castle glides 
Bright as a meteor through the azure tides; 
O'er towns, and towers, and temples, wins its way, 
Or mounts sublime, and gilds the vault of day. 50 

Silent with upturn'd eyes unbreathing crowds 
Pursue the floating wonder to the clouds ; 
And, flush'd with transport or benumb'd with fear, 
Watch, as it rises, the diminish'd sphere. 
— Now less and less ! — and now a speck is seen !— 35 

And, now the fleeting rack obtrudes between !-— 
With bended knees, raised arms, and suppliant brows, 
To every shrine they breathe their mingled vows. — 
" Save him, ye Saints! who o'er the good preside ; 
" Bear him, ye Winds ! ye Stars benignant ! guide.' 7 40 

— The calm Philosopher in ether sails, 
Views broader stars, and breathes in purer gales ; 
Sees, like a map, in many a waving line, 
Round earth's blue plains her lucid waters shine ; 
Sees at his feet the forky lightnings glow, 
And hears innocuous thunders roar below. 
— Rise, great Mongolfier ! urge thy venturous flighr 
High o'er the Moon's pale ice-reflected light; 
High o'er the pearly Star, whose beamy horn 
Hangs in the east, gay harbinger of morn ; 5Q 



Canto II. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 

Leave the red eye of Mars on rapid wing, 
Jove's silver guards, and Saturn's crystal ring ; 
Leave the fair beams, which, issuing from afar, 
Play with new lustres round the Georgian star ; 
Shun with strong oars the Sun's attractive throne, 
The sparkling zodiac, and the milky zone ; 
Where headlong Comets, with increasing force, 
Through other systems bend their blazing course.— 
For thee Cassiope her chair withdraws, 
For thee the Bear retracts his shaggy paws ; 
High o'er the North thy golden orb shall roll, 
And blaze eternal round the wondering pole. 
So Argo, rising from the southern main, 
Lights with new stars the blue ethereal plain ; 
With favouring beams the mariner protects, 
And the bold course, which first it steer'd, directs, 

Inventress of the Woof, fair Lin a flings 
The flying shuttle through the dancing strings ; 
Inlays the broider'd weft with flowery dyes, 
Quick beat the reeds, the pedals fall and rise : 
Slow from the beam the lengths of warp unwind, 
And dance and nod the massy weights behind. — » 
Taught by her labours, from the fertile soil 
Immortal Isis clothed the banks of Nile; 
And fair Arachne with her rival loom 
Found, undeserved, a melancholy doom. — . 
Five Sister-nymphs with dewy fingers twine 
The beamy flax, and stretch the fibre-line ; 
Quick eddying threads from rapid spindles reel. 
Or whirl with beaten foot the dizzy wheel. 



For thee the Bear. 1. 60. Tibi jam brachia oontrahit ardens Scorpius. 
Virg. Georg. lib. i. 1. 34. A new star appeared in Cassiope ? s chair in 1572. 
Herschel's Construction of the Heavens. Phil. Trans, vol. lxxv. p. 266. 

Linum. 1. 67- Flax. Five males and five females. It was first found on 
the banks of the Nile. The Linum Lusitanicum, or Portugal flax, has ten 
males. See the note on Curcuma. Isis was said to invent spinning and weav- 
ing: mankind before that time were clothed with the skins of animals. The 
fable of Arachne was to compliment this new art of spinning and weaving, 
supposed to surpass in fineness the web of the Snider. 

Part II. G 



50 rib I ANIC GARDEN. Part II. 

— Charni'd round the busy Fair Jive shepherds press, 
Praise the nice texture of their snowy dress, 
Admire the Artists, and the art approve, 
And tell with honey'd words the tale of love. 

So now, where Derwent rolls his dusky floods 85 

Through vaulted mountains, and a night of woods, 
The Nymph, Gossypia, treads the velvet sod, 
And warms with rosy smiles the watery God ; 
His ponderous oars to slender spindles turns, 
And pours o'er massy wheels his foamy urns ; 90 

With playful charms her hoary lover wins, 
And wields his trident, — while the Monarch spins, 
— First with nice eye emerging Naiads cull 
From leathery pods the vegetable wool ; 

With wiry teeth revolving- cards release 95 

The tangled knots, and smooth the ravelTd fleece ; . 



Gossypia. 1.87. Gos3vpium. The cotton plant. On the river Derwent . 
.-.ear Matlock, in Derbyshire, Sir Richard Aekwriciit has erected his 
■curious and magnificent machinery for spuming cotton, which had been in 
vain attempted by many ingenious artists before him The cotton-wool is first 
picked from the pods and seeds by women. It is then carded by cylindrical 
cards, which move against each other, with different velocities. It is taken 
from these by an iron band or comb, which has a motion similar to that of 
scratching, and takes the wool off the cards longitudinally in respect to the 
fibres or staple, producing a continued line loosely cohering, called the Rove 
or Rowing. This Rove, yet very loosely twisted, is then received or drawn 
into a nobbling cannister, and is rolled by the centrifugal force in spiral lines 
within it, being yet too tender for the spindle. It is then passed between 
tixo pairs of rollers ; the second pair moving faster than the first, elongate 
the thread with greater equality than can be done by the hand ; and it is then 
twisted on spoles or bobbins. 

The great fertility of the Cotton-plant in these fine flexile threads, while 
those from Flax, Hemp, and Nettles, or from the bark of the Mulberry- 
tree, require a previous putrefaction of the parenchymatous substance, and 
much mechanical labour, and afterwards bleaching, renders this plant of 
great importance to the world. And since Sir Richard Ark wright's inge- 
nious machine has not only greatly abbreviated and simplified the labour and 
art of carding and spinning the Cotton-wool, but performs both these cir- 
.. Better than can be done by hand, it is probable that the clothing 
of this small seed will become the principal clothing of mankind ; though 
animal wool and silk may be preferable in colder climates, as they are more 
i i onductors of heatj and are thence a warmer clothing. ■ 

Emcrvin^ Naiads. 1. 93. earn circum Milesia vellera Nymphs 

Carpebant, hyali saturo fucara colore. 

Vug. Georg. lib. iv. L 334 



Canto II. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 5 . 

Next moves the iron hand with fingers fine, 

Combs the wide card, and forms the eternal line ; 

Slow, with soft lips, the whirling can acquires 

The tender skeins, and wraps in rising spires ; 100 

"With quicken'd pace successive rollers move. 

And these retain, and those extend the rove ; 

Then fly the spoles, the rapid axles glow, 

And slowly circumvolves the labouring wheel below. 

Papyra, throned upon the banks of Nile, 105 

Spread her smooth leaf, and waved her silver style* 
— The storied pyramid, the laurePd bust, 
The trophy 'd arch had crumbled into dust - r 
The sacred svmbol, and the epic song 

(Unknown the character, forgot the tongue,) 1K3' 

With each unconquer'd chief, or sainted maid, 
Sunk undistinguish'd in Oblivion's shade. 
Sad o'er the scatter'd ruins Genius sigh'd, 
And infant Arts but learn'd to lisp, and died*. 
Till to astonish'd realms Papyra taught 115 

To paint in mystic colours Sound and Thought. 

Cyperus Papyrus. 1. 105. Three males, one female. The leaf of this plant 
was hrst used for paper, whence the word paper; and leaf, or folium, for a 
fold of a book. Afterwards the bark of a species of mulberry was used ; 
whence libtr signifies a book, and the bark of a tree. Before the invention 
of letters mankind may be said to have been perpetually in their infancy, as 
the arts of one age or country generally died with their inventors. Whence 
arose the policy, which still continues in Indostar^ of obliging the son to 
practise the profession of his father. After the discovery of letters, the 
facts of Astronomy and Chemistry became recorded in written language, 
though the ancient hieroglyphic characters for the planets and metals continue 
in use at this day. The antiquity of the invention of music, of astronomical 
observations, and the manufacture of Gold and Iron, are recorded in Scripture. 

About twenty letters, ten cyphers, and seven crotchets, represent by their 
numerous combinations all our ideas and sensations ! the musical characters 
are probably arrived at their perfection, unless emphasis, and tone, and swell 
could be expressed, as well as note and time. Charles the twelfth of Sweden 
had a design to have introduced a numeration by squares, instead of by deci- 
mation, which might have served the purposes of philosophy better than the 
present mode, which is said to be of Arabic invention. The Alphabet is 
yet in a very imperfect state ; perhaps seventeen letters could express all the 
simple sounds in the European languages. In China they have not yet 
learned to divide their words into syllables, and are thence necessitated to 
employ many thousand characters; it is said above eighty thousand. It is 
to be wished, in this ingenious age, that the European nations would accord 
to reform our alphabet. 



S3 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part If. 

With Wisdom's voice to print the page sublime, 

And mark in adamant the steps of Time. 

— -Three favour'd youths her soft attention share, 

The fond disciples of the studious Fair, 120 

Hear her sweet voice, the golden process prove ; 

Gaze, as they learn ; and as thev listen, love. 

The first from Alpha to Omega joins 

The letter'd tribes along the level lines ; 

Weighs with nice ear the vowel, liquid, surd, 125 

And breaks in syllables the volant word. 

Then forms the next upon the marshall'd plain, 

In deepening ranks, his dexterous cypher-train ; 

And counts, as wheel the decimating bands, 

The dews of Egvpt, or Arabia's sands. 130 

And then the third, on four concordant lines, 

Prints the lone crotchet, and the quaver joins ; 

Marks the gay trill, the solemn pause inscribes, 

And parts with bars the undulating tribes. 134 

Pleased, round her cane-wove throne, the applauding crowd 

Clapp'd their rude hands, their swarthy foreheads bow'd ; 

With loud acclaim, u a present God !" they cry'd, 

" A present God !" rebellowing shores reply'd. — 

Then peal'd at intervals, with mingled swell, 

The echoing harp, shrill clarion, horn, and shell ; 140 

While Bards ecstatic, bending o'er the lyre, 

Struck deeper chords, and wing'd the song with fire. 

Then mark'd Astronomers, with keener eyes, 

The Moon's refulgent journey through the skies ; 

Watch'd the swift Comets urge their blazing cars, 1-ks 

And weigh'd the Sun with his revolving Stars. 

High raised the Chemists their Hermetic wands, 

(And changing forms obey'd their waving hands,) 

Her treasured Gold from Earth's deep chambers tore, 

Or fused and harden'd her chalybeate ore. 1 50 

All with bent knee from fair Papyra claim, 

Wove by her hands, the wreath of deathless fame. 

— Exulting Genius crown'd his darling child, 

The young Arts clasp'd her knees, and Virtue smiled. 



Canto II. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 

Sq now Del any forms her mimic bowers, 
Her paper foliage, and her silken flowers ; 
Her virgin train the tender seissars ply, 
Vein the green leaf, the purple pttal dye : 
Round wiry stems the flaxen tendril bends, 
Moss creeps below, and waxen fruit impends* 
Cold Winter views, amid his realms of snow, 
Delany's vegetable statues blow ; 
Smooths his stern brow, delays his hoary wing, 
And eyes with wonder all the blooms of spring. 

The gentle Lapsana, Nymph .e a fair, 
And bright Calendula, with golden hair, 



So wcw Delany. I. 155. Mrs. Delany has finished nine hundred and seventy 
accurate and elegant representations of different vegetables, with the parts 
of their flowers, fructification, &c. according with the classification of Lin- 
naeus, in what she terms paper-mosaic. She began this work at the age of 
74, when her sight would no longer serve her to paint, in which she much 
excelled ; between her age of 74 and 82, at which time her eyes quite failed 
her, she executed the curious Hortus siccus above-mentioned, which I sup- 
pose contains a greater number of plants than were ever before drawn 
from the life by any one person. Her method consisted in placing the leaves 
of each plant with the petals, and all the other parts of the flowers, on 
coloured paper, and cutting them with seissars accurately to the natural size 
and form, and then pasting them on a dark ground; the effect of which is 
wonderful, and their accuracy less liable to fallacy than drawings. She is 
at this time (1788) in her 89ch year, with all the powers of a fine understand- 
ing still unimpaired. I am informed another very ingenious lady, Mrs. 
North, is constructing a similar Hortus siccus, or Paper-garden ; which she 
executes on aground of vellum with such elegant taste and scientific accuracy, 
that it cannot fail to become a work of inestimable value. 

Lapsana, Nymphta alba, Calendula. 1. 165. And many other flowers close 
and open their petals at certain hours of the day; and thus constitute what 
J,in,n:eus calls the Horologe, or Watch of Flora. He enumerates 46 flowers 
which possess this kind of sensibility. I shall mention a few of them, with 
their respective hours of rising and setting, as Linnxus terms them. He 
divides them, first, into -meteoric flowers, which less accurately observe the 
hour of unfolding, but are expanded sooner or later, according to the cloudi- 
ness, moisture, or pressure of the atmosphere. 2d. Tropical flowers, open in 
the morning and close before evening every day ; but the hour of the ex- 
panding becomes earlier or later, as the length of the day increases or de- 
creases, odly. Equinoctial flowers, which open at a certain and exact hour 
of the day, and for the most part close at another determinate hour. 

Hence the Horologe, or Watch of Flora, is formed from numerous plants, 
of which the following are those most common in this country. Leontodcn 
taraxacum, Dandelion, opens at 5 — 6, closes at S — 9. Hieracium pilosella, 
mouse-ear hawk-weed, opens at 8, closes at 2. Sonchus Ixvis, smooth Sow- 
thistle, at 5 and at 11 — 12. Lactuca sativa, cultivated Lettice, at 7 and at 
JO. Tragopogon. luteum, yellow Goatsbeard, at 3—5 and at 9— 10. Lap. 



54, BOTANIC GARDEN. Part II'. 

Watch with nice eve the Earth's diurnal way, 

Marking her solar and sidereal day, 

Her slow nutation, and her varying clime, 

And trace with mimic art the march of Time ; 170 

Round His light foot a magic chain they fling, 

And count the quick vibrations of his wing.—. 

First in its brazen cell reluctant roll'd, 

Bends the dark spring in many a steely fold. 

On spiral brass is stretch'd the win 7 throng, 175 

Tooth urges tooth, and wheel drives wheel along ; 

In diamond-eyes the polish'd axles flow, 

Smooth slides the hand, the balance pants below. 

Round the white circlet, in relievo bold, 

A Serpent twines his scaly length in gold ; 180 

And brightly pencil'd on the enamel'd sphere 

Live the fair trophies of the passing year. 

— Here Timers huge fingers grasp his giant mace, 

And dash proud Superstition from her base ; 

Rend her strong towers and gorgeous fanes, and shed 18£ 

The crumbling fragments round her guilty head. 

There the gay Hours, whom wreaths of roses deck, 

Lead their young trains amid the cumberous wreck, 

And, slowly purpling o'er the mighty waste, 

Plant the fair growths of Science and of Taste. 190 

While each light Moment, as it dances by 

With feathery foot and pleasure-twinkling eye, 

Feeds from its baby-hand, with many a kiss, 

The callow nestlings of domestic Bliss. 

As yon gay clouds, which canopy the skies, 195 

Change their thin forms, and lose their lucid dyes ; 

sana, nipplewort, at 5 — 6 and at 10 — 1. Nymphaea alba, white water lily, 
at 7 and at 5. Papaver nudicaule, naked poppy, at 5 and at 7. Hemerocallis 
fulva, tawny Day-lily, at 5 and at 7 — 8. Convolvulus, at 5 — 6. Malva, 
Mallow, at 9 — 10 and at 1, Arenarea purpurea, purple Sandwort, at 9 — 10 
ami al 2 — 3. Anagallis, pimpernel, at 7 — $■ Portulaca hortensis, garden 
JPurslain, at 9—10 and at 11—12. Diamhus prolifer, proliferous Pink, at 
S and at 1. Cichoreum, Succorv, at 4 — 5. Hypochaeris, at 6— 
4—5. Crepis, at 4—5 and at 10—11. Pars, at 4— 5 and at 12. Caleu- 
dtila field, at 9 and at 3. Calendula African, at 7 and at 3 — i. 

A:, tlit' ere probabl) made in the botan c gardens at Upsal,. 

the) rnusl require farther attention to sun tuciw to our climate. Sec Stilling- 
fleet's Calcna; r of J lora, 



Canto II. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 55 

So the soft bloom of Beauty's vernal charms 

Fades in our eyes, and withers in our arms. 

— Bright as the silvery plume, or pearly shell, 

The snow-white rose, or lily's virgin bell, 200 

The fair Helleborus attractive shone, 

Warm'd every Sage, and every Shepherd won. — 

Round the gay sisters press the enamour V bands, 

And seek with soft solicitude their hands. 

— Ere while how changed ! — in dim suffusion lies 205 

The glance divine, that lightened in their eyes ; 

Cold are those lips, where smiles seductive hung, 

And the weak accents linger on their tongue ; 

Each roseate feature fades to livid green — 

—Disgust, with face averted, shuts the scene. 210 

So from his gorgeous throne, which awed die world. 
The mighty Monarch of Assyria hurFd, 
Sojourn'd with brutes beneath the midnight storm, 
Changed bv avenging Heaven in mind and form. 
— Prone to the earth he bends his brow superb, 215. 

Crops the young floret and the bladed herb ; 
Lolls his red tongue, and from the reedy side 
Of slow Euphrates laps the muddy tide. 
Long eagle plumes his arching neck invest, 
Steal round his arms, and clasp his sharpen'd breast ; 220 

Dark brinded hairs, in bristling ranks, behind, 
Rise o'er his back, and rustle in the wind ; 
Clothe his lank sides, his shrivell'd limbs surround, 
And human hands with talons print the ground. 
Silent, in shining troops, the Courtier-thrung 225 

Pursue their monarch as he crawls along ; 

Helleborus. 1. 201. Many males, many females. The Helleborus niger, 
or Christmas rose, has a large beautiful white flower, adorned with a circle 
of tubular two-lip'd nectaries. After impregnation the flower undergoes a re- 
markable change, the nectaries drop off, but the white corol remains, and 
gradually becomes quite green. This cur ous metamorphose of the corol, 
when the nectaries fall off, seems to show that the white juices of the corol 
were before carried to the nectaries for the purpose of producing honey : be- 
cause when these nectaries fall off, no more of the white juice is secreted in 
the corol, but it becomes green, and degenerates into a calx. See note on 
Lonicera. The nectary of the Tropxolum. garden nasturtion, is a coloured 
horn growing from the caly>:. 



S6 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part It 

E'en Beauty pleads in vain with smiles and tears, 
Nor Flattery's self can pierce his pendant ears. 

Two Sister-Nymphs to Ganges' flowery brink 
Bend their light steps, the lucid water drink, 230 

Wind through the dewy rice, and nodding canes, 
(As eight black Eunuchs guard the sacred plains,) 
With playful malice watch the scaly brood, 
And shower the inebriate berries on the flood. — 
Stay in your crystal chambers, silver tribes ! 235 

Turn your bright eyes, and shun the dangerous bribes ; 
The tramel'd net with less destruction sweeps 
Your curling shallows, and your azure deeps ; 
With less deceit, the gilded fly beneath, 

Lurks the fell hook unseen, — to taste is death ! 240 

— Dim your slow eyes, and dull your pearly coat, 
Drunk on the waves your languid forms shall float, 
On useless fins in giddy circles plav, 
And Herons and Otters seize you for their prey.— 

So, when the Saint from Padua's graceless land 245- 

In silent anguish sought the barren strand, 
High on the shatter'd beech sublime he stood, 
Still'd with his waving arm the babbling flood ; 
" To Man's dull ear," he cry'd, " I call in vain, 
" Hear me, ye scaly tenants of the main !" — 250 

Misshapen Seals approach in circling flocks, 
In dusky mail the Tortoise climbs the rocks, 
Torpedoes, Sharks, Rays, Porpus, Dolphins, pour 
Their twinkling squadrons round the glittering shore; 
With tangled fins, behind, huge Phocse glide, 255 

And Whales and Grampi swell the distant tide. 
Then kneel'd the hoary Seer, to Heaven address'd 
His fiery eyes, and smote his sounding breast ; 



7w> Sistcr-Kyvifi/js. 1.229. Menispermum, Cocculus. Indian berry. Two 
boil es, twelve Mies. In the female flower there arc two styles and eight 
filaments without anthers on their summits; which are called by Linna-us, 
eunuchs. Seethe note on Curcuma. The berry intoxicates fish. St. An- 
Padua, when the people refused to hear him, preached to the fish, 
and converted them. Addison's Travels in Italy. 



Canto II. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 5? 

" Bless ve the Lord !" with thundering voice he cry'd, 

** Bless ye the Lord !" the bending shores reply'd ! 260 

The winds and waters caught the sacred word, 

And mingling echoes shouted " Bless the Lord !" 

The listening shoals the quick contagion feel, 

Pant on the floods, inebriate with their zeal, 

Ope their wide jaws, and bow their slimy heads, 265 

And dash with frantic fins their foamy beds. 

Sopha'd on silk, amid her charm-built towers, 
Her meads of asphodel, and amaranth bowers, 
Where Sleep and Silence guard the soft abodes, 
In sullen apathy Papaver nods. 270 

Faint o'er her couch in scintillating streams 
Pass the thin forms of Fancy and of Dreams ; 
Froze by enchantment on the velvet ground, 
Fair youths and beauteous ladies glitter round ; 
On crystal pedestals they seem to sigh, 275 

Bend the meek knee, and lift the imploring eye. 
—And now the Sorceress bares her shrivel'd hand, 
And circles thrice in air her ebon wand ; 
Flush'd with new life descending statues talk, 
The pliant marble softening as they walk : 280 

With deeper sobs reviving lovers breathe, 
Fair bosoms rise, and soft hearts pant beneath ; 
With warmer lips relenting damsels speak, 
And kindling blushes tinge the Parian cheek ; 
To viewless lutes aerial voices sing, 285 

And hovering loves are heard on rustling wing. 
— She waves her wand again ! — fresh horrors seize 
Their stiffening limbs, their vital currents freeze ; 

Papaver. L 270. Poppy. Many males, many females. The plants of this 
class are almost all of them poisonous ; the finest opium is procured by 
wounding the heads of large poppies with a three-edged knife, and tying 
muscle-shells to them to catch the drops. In small quantities it exhilarates 
the mind, raises the passions, and invigorates the body: in large ones it is 
succeeded by intoxication, languor, stupor, and death. It is customary in 
India for a messenger to travel above a hundred miles without rest or food, 
except an appropriated bit of opium for himself, and a larger one for his 
horse at certain stages. The emaciated and decrepid appearance, with the 
ridiculous and idiotic gestures of the opium-eaters in Constantinople, is well 
described in the Memoirs of Baron de Tott. 

"Part II. H 



08 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part II. 

By each cold nymph her marble lover lies, 

And iron slumbers seal their glassy eyes. 290 

So with his dread Caduceus Hermes led 

From the dark regions of the imprison'd dead, 

Or drove in silent shoals the lingering train 

To Night's dull shore, and Pluto's drear}' reign. 

So with her waving pencil Crewe commands 295 

The realms of Taste, and Fancy's fairy lands ; 
Calls up with magic voice the shapes, that sleep 
In Earth's dark bosom, or unfathom'd deep j 
That, shrined in air, on viewless wings aspire, 
Or, blazing, bathe in elemental fire. 300 

As with nice touch her plastic hand she moves, 
Rise the fine forms of Beauties, Graces, Loves J 
Kneel to the fair enchantress, smile or sigh, 
And fade or flourish, as she turns her eye. 

Fair Cista, rival of the rosy dawn, 305 

Call'd her light choir, and trod the dewy lawn ; 
Hail'd with rude melodv the new-bom May, 
As cradled yet in April's lap she lay. 

So •mizh her waving pencil. 1. 295. Alluding to the many beautiful paintings 
by Miss Emma Chewe, to whom the author is indebted for the very elegant 
Frontispiece, where Flora, at play with Cupid, is loading him with garden- 
tools. 

Cistus labdaniferus. 1.305. Many males, one female. The petals of this 
beautiful and fragrant shrub, as well as of the CEnothera, tree-primrose, and 
others, continue expanded but a few hours, falling oil" about noon, or soon af- 
ter, in hot weather. The most beautiful flowers of the Cactus grandiflorus, 
(see Cerea) are of equally short duration, but have their existence in the night. 
And the flowers of the Hibiscus trionum are said to continue but a single 
hour. The courtship between the males and females in these flowers might 
be easily watched ; the males are said to approach and recede from the fe- 
males alternately. The flowers of the Hibiscus sinensis, mutable rose, live in 
the West-Indies, their native climate, but one day ; but have this remarkable 
property, they are white at their first expansion, then change to deep red, 
and become purple as they decay. 

The gum or resin of this fragrant vegetable is collected from extensive un- 
derwoods of it in the East by a singular contrivance. Long leathern thongs 
arc tied to poles and cords, and drawn over the tops of these shrubs about 
noon ; which thus collect the dust of the anthers, which adheres to the lea- 
ther, and is occasionally scraped oil'. Thus, in some degree, is the manner 
imitated, in which the bee collects on his thighs and legs the same material 
for the construction of his combs. 



Canto II. LOVES OF THE PLANTS, & 

I 

" Born in yon blaze of orient sky, 

" Sweet May ! thy radiant form unfold ; 310 

" Unclose thy blue voluptuous eye, 

" And wave thy shadowy locks of gold. 
II. 
" For thee the fragrant zephyrs blow, 

" For thee descends the sunny shower; 
" The rills in softer murmurs flow, 315 

" And brighter blossoms gem the bower. 
III. 
" Light graces dress'd in flowery wreaths, 

" And tiptoe Joys their hands combine ; 
" And love his sweet contagion breathes, 

" And laughing dances round thy shrine. -320 

IV. 
u Warm with new life, the glittering throngs, 

" On quivering fin and rustling wing, 
" Delighted join their votive songs, 

" And hail thee Goddess of the Spring." 

O'er the green brinks of Severn's oozy bed, S2i 

In changeful rings, her sprightly troops she led ; 

Pan tripp'd before, where Eudness shades the mead. 

And blew with glowing lip his sevenfold reed ; 

Emerging Naiads swell'd the jocund strain, 

And aped with mimic step the dancing train. — * 3SQ 

" I faint, I fall !" — at noon the Beauty cried, 

" Weep o'er my tomb, ye Nymphs !"— and sunk, and died. 

— Thus, when white Winter o'er the shivering clime 

Drives the still snow, or showers the silver rime ; 

As the lone shepherd o'er the dazzling rocks 355 

Prints his steep step, and guides his vagrant flocks ; 

Views the green holly yeil'd in net-work nice, 

Her vermil clusters twinkling in the ice ; 

Admires the lucid vales, and slumbering floods, 

Suspended cataracts, and crystal woods, 340 

Sevenfold reed. 1. 328. The sevenfold reed, with which Pan is frequently 
^escribed, seems to indicate, that he was the inventor of the musical gamut. 



so BOTANIC GARDEN. Part Iv» 

Transparent towns, with seas of milk between, 

And eves with transport the refulgent scene : 

f f breaks the sunshine o'er the spangled trees, 

Or flits on tepid wing the western breeze, 

In liquid dews descends the transient glare, 3±5 

And all the glittering pageant melts in air. 

Where Andes hides his cloud-wreath'd crest in snow, 
And roots his base on burning sands below , 
Cinchona, fairest of Peruvian maids, 

To Health's bright Goddess in the breezv glades, 350 

On Quito's temperate plain an altar rear'd, 
Trill'd the loud hymn, the solemn prayer preferr'd : 
Each balmy bud she cull'd, and honey'd flower, 
And hung with fragrant wreaths the sacred bower ; 
Each pearly sea she search'd, and sparkling mine, 355 

And piled their treasures on the gorgeous shrine ; 
Her suppliant voice for sickening Loxa raised, 
Sweet breathed the gale, and bright the censor blazed. 
— " Divine Hygeia ! on thy votaries bend 
" Thy angel-looks, oh, hear vis, and defend! 3GO 

" While streaming o'er the night with baleful glare 
" The star of Autumn rays his misty hair ; 
" Fierce from his fens the giant Ague springs, 
il And wrapp'd in fogs descends on vampire wings ; 
** Before, with shuddering limbs cold Tremor reels, 365 

*" And Fever's burning nostril dogs his heels } 
" Loud claps the grinning Fiend his iron hands, 
" Stamps with black hoof, and shouts along the lands , 
" Withers the damask check, unnerves the strong, 
" And drives with scorpion-lash the shrieking throng. 370 
" Oh, Goddess ! on thy kneeling votaries bend 
" Thy angel-looks, oh, hear us, and defend!" 
—Hygeia, leaning from the blest abodes, 
The crystal mansions of the immortal gods, 

Cinchona. 1. 349. Peruvian bavk-tree. Five males and one female. Several 
of these trees were felled for other purposes into a lake, when an epidemic 
fever of a very mortal kind prevailed at Loxa, in Pern, and the woodmen 
accidentally drinking the waicr, were cured ; and thus were discovered the 

virtue:; of this famous dru£. 



Canto II. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 61 

Saw the sad Nymph uplift her dewy eyes, 375 

Spread her white arms, and breathe her fervid sighs ; 

Call'd to her fair associates, Youth and Joy, 

And shot all radiant through the glittering sky ; 

Loose waved behind her golden train of hair, 

Her sapphire mantle swam diffused in air. — 380 

O'er the grey matted moss, and pansied sod, 

With step sublime the glowing Goddess trod, 

Gilt with her beamy eye the conscious shade, 

And with her smile celestial bless'd the maid. 

^ Come to my arms," with seraph voice she cries, 385 

" Thy vows are heard, benignant Nymph ! arise ; 

" Where yon aspiring trunks fantastic wreath 

" Their mingled roots, and drink the rill beneath, 

" Yield to the biting axe thy sacred wood, 

" And strew the bitter foliage on the flood." 390 

In silent homage bow'd the blushing maid, — 

Five youths athletic hasten to her aid, 

O'er the scar'd hills re-echoing strokes resound, 

And headlong forests thunder on the ground. 

Round the dark roots, rent bark, and shatter'd boughs, 395 

From ocherous beds the swelling fountain flows ; 

With streams austere its winding margin laves, 

And pours from vale to vale its dusky waves. 

i — rAs the pale squadrons, bending o'er the brink, 

View with a sigh their alter'd forms, and drink ; 400 

Slow-ebbing life with refluent crimson breaks 

O'er their wan lips, and paints their haggard cheeks ; 

Through each fine nerve rekindling transports dart, 

Light the quick eye, and swell the exulting heart. 

— Thus Israel's heaven-taught chief o'er trackless sands 405 

Led to the sultry rock his murmuring bands. 

Bright o'er his brows the forky radiance blazed, 

And high in air the rod divine he raised. — t 

Wide yawns the cliff! — amid the thirsty throng 

Rush the redundant waves, and shine along ; 410 

With gourds, and shells, and helmets, press the bands, 

Ope their parch'd lips, and spread their eager hands, 

Snatch their pale infants to the exuberant shower, 

Kneel on the shatter'd rock, and bless the Almighty Power* 



BOTANIC GARDEN. Part IL 

Bolster'd with down, amid a thousand wants, 415 

Pale Drops v rears his bloated form, and pants ; 
" Quench me, ye cool pellucid rills !" he cries, 
Wets his parch'd tongue, and rolls his hollow eyes. 
So bends tormented Tantalus to drink, 

While from his lips the refluent waters shrink ; 420 

Again the rising stream his bosom laves, 
And thirst consumes him 'mid circumfluent waves. 
— Divine Hygeia, from the bending sky 
Descending, listens to his piercing cry ; 

Assumes bright Digitalis' dress and air, 425 

Her ruby cheek, white neck, and raven hair. 
Four youths protect her from the circling throng, 
And like the Nymph the Goddess steps along. — 
O'er him she waves her serpent-wreathed wand, 
Cheers with her voice, and raises with her hand, 430 

Warms with rekindling bloom his visage wan, 
And charms the shapeless monster into man. 

So when Contagion with mephitic breath, 
And wither'd famine urged the work of death ; 
Marseilles' good Bishop, London's generous Mayor, 435 

With food and faith, with medicine and with prayer, 

Digitalis. I. 425. Of the class Two Powers. Four males, one female 
Foxglove. The effect of this plant in that kind of Dropsy which is termed 
anasarca, where the legs and thighs are much swelled, attended with great 
difficulty of breathing, is truly astonishing. In the ascites, accompanied 
with anasarca, of people past the meridian of life, it will also sometimes suc- 
ceed. The method of administering it requires some caution, as it is liable. 
in greater doses, to induce very violent and debilitating sickness, which con- 
tinues one or two days, during which time the dropsical collection, however, 
disappears One large spoonful, or half an ounce, of the following decoc- 
tion, given twice a day, will generally succeed in a few days. But in more 
robust people, one large spoonful every two hours, till four spoonfuls arc 
taken, or till sickness occurs, will evacuate the dropsical swellings with greater 
certainty, but is liable to operate more violently. Boil four ounces o( tin 
fresh leaves of purple Foxglove (which leaves may be had at all seasons of 
the year) from two pints of water to twelve ounces ; add to the strained liquor, 
while yet warm, three ounces of rectified spirit of wine. A theory or the 
fffects of this medicine, with many successful eases, may be seen in a pam- 
phlet, called, " Experiments on Mucilaginous and Purulent Matter," pub- 
lished by Dr. Darwin in 1780. 

m' good Bishop. 1.435. In the year 1720 and 1722, the plague 
made dreadful havock at Marseilles; at which time the Bishop was indefa 
tigahlfi in the execution of his pastoral office, visiting, relieving, encouraging. 



Cakto II. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. M 

Raised the weak head, and stayed the parting sigh, 

Or with new life relumed the swimming eye. — 

— And now, Philanthropy ! thy rays divine 

Dart round the globe from Zembla to the Line ; 440 

O'er each dark prison plays the cheering light, 

Like northern lustres o'er the vault of night. — 

From realm to realm, with cross or crescent crown'd. 

Where'er Mankind and Misery are found, 

O'er burning sands, deep waves, or wilds of snow, 445 

Thy Howard, journeying, seeks the house of woe. 

Down many a winding step to dungeons dank, 

Where anguish wails aloud, and fetters clank ; 

To caves bestrew'd with many a mouldering bone, 

And cells, whose echoes only leam to groan ; 450 

Where no kind bars a whispering friend disclose, 

No sunbeam enters, and no zephyr blows, 

He treads, inemulous of fame or wealth, 

Profuse of toil and prodigal of health ; 

With soft assuasive eloquence expands . 455 

Power's rigid heart, and opes his clenching hands ; 

Leads stern-eyed Justice to the dark domains, 

If not to sever, to relax the chains ; 

Or guides awaken'd Mercy through the gloom, 

And shows the prison, sister to the tomb ! — 460 

Gives to her babes the self-devoted wife, 

To her fond husband liberty and life ! — > 

— The spirits of the Good, who bend from high 

Wide o'er these earthly scenes their partial eye, 



and absolving the sick with extreme tenderness; and though perpetually ex- 
posed to the infection, like Sir John Lawrence, mentioned below, they both 
are said to have escaped the disease. 

London '&■ generous Mayor : 1.435. During the great plague at London in 
the year 1665, Sir John Lawrence, the then Lord Mayor, continued the 
whole time in the city ; heard complaints, and redressed them ; enforced the 
wisest regulations then known, and saw them executed. The day after the 
disease was known with certainty to be the plague, above 40,000 servants 
were dismissed, and turned into the streets to perish, for no one would receive 
them into their houses; and the villages near London drove them away with 
pitch-forks and fire-arms. Sir John Lawrence supported them all, as well 
as the needy who were sick, at first by expending his own fortune, till sub- 
scriptions could be solicited and received from all parts of the nation, Jour- 
nal of the Plague-year. Printed fur E. Nutt, Wc. at the Royal JSxchtWge, 1722. 



64. BOTANIC GARDEN. Part IL 

When first, arravM in Virtue's purest robe, 465 

They saw her Howard traversing the globe; 

Saw round his brows her sun-like Glory blaze 

In arrowy circles of unwearied rays ; 

Mistook a Mortal for an Angel-Guest, 

And ask'd what Seraph-foot the earth imprest. 470 

— Onward he moves ! — Disease and Death retire, 

And murmuring Demons hate him, and admire." 

Here paused the Goddess, — on Hygeia's shrine 
Obsequious Gnomes repose the lyre divine ; 
Descending Sylphs relax the trembling strings, 47.1 

And catch the rain-drops on their shadowy wings. 
—And now her vase a modest Naiad fills 
With liquid crystal from her pebbly rills ; 
Piles the dry cedar round her silver urn, 

(Bright climbs the blaze, the crackling faggots burn), 480 

Culls the green herb of China's envied bowers, 
In gaudy cups the steamy treasure pours ; 
And sweetly smiling, on her bended knee 
Presents the fragrant quintessence of Tea. 



INTERLUDE II. 



Bookseller. JL HE monsters of your Botanic Garden are as 
surprising as the bulls with brazen feet, and the fire-breathing 
dragons, which guarded the Hesperian fruit ; yet are they not 
disgusting, nor mischievous : and in the manner you have 
chained them together in your exhibition, they succeed each 
other amusingly enough, like prints of the London Cries, 
wrapped upon rollers, with a glass before them. In this, at 
least, the}- resemble the monsters in Ovid's Metamorphoses ; 
but your similies, I suppose, are Homeric ? 

Poet. The great Bard well understood how to make use of 
this kind of ornament in Epic Poetry. He brings his valiant 
heroes into the field with much parade, and sets them a fight- 
ing with great fury ; and then, after a few thrusts and parries, 
he introduces a long string of similies. During this the battle 
is supposed to continue ; and thus the time necessary for the 
action is gained in our imaginations, and a degree of proba- 
bility produced, which contributes to the temporary deception 
or reverie of the reader. 

But the similies of Homer have another agreeable charac- 
teristic ; they do not quadrate, or go upon all fours (as it is 
called), like the more formal similies of some modem writers ; 
any one resembling feature seems to be, with him, a sufficient 
excuse for the introduction of this kind of digression. He then 
proceeds to deliver some agreeable poetry on this new subject, 
and thus converts every similie into a kind of short episode. 

B. Then a similie should not very accurately resemble the 
subject ? 

P. No; it would then become a philosophical analogy; it 
would be ratiocination instead of poetry: it need only so far 
resemble the subject, as poetry itself ought to resemble nature. 
It should have so much sublimity, beauty, or novelty, as to 
interest the reader ; and should be expressed in picturesque 
language, so as to bring the scenery before his eye; and should, 

Part II. I 



66 INTERLUDE II. 

lastly, bear so much vcri-similitude as not to awaken him by 
the violence of improbability or incongruity. 

B. May not the reverie of the reader be dissipated or dis- 
turbed by disagreeable images being presented to his imagina- 
tion, as well as by improbable or incongruous ones? 

P. Certainly; he will endeavour to rouse himself from a 
disagreeable reverie, as from the nightmare. And from this 
may be discovered the line of boundary between the Tragic 
and the Horrid ; which line, however, will veer a little this way 
or that, according to the prevailing manners of the age or 
countiy, and the peculiar association of ideas, or idiosyncracy 
of mind, of individuals. For instance, if an artist should re- 
present the death of an officer in battle, by showing a little 
blood on the bosom of his shirt, as if a bullet had there pene- 
trated, the dying figure would affect the beholder with pity 9 
and if fortitude was at the same time expressed in his coun- 
tenance, admiration would be added to our pity. On the con- 
trary, if the artist should choose to represent his thigh as shot 
away by a cannon ball, and should exhibit the bleeding flesh 
and shattered bone of the stump, the picture would introduce 
into our minds ideas from a butcher's shop, or a surgeon's 
operation room, and we should turn from it with digust. So, 
if characters were brought upon the stage with their limbs dis- 
jointed by torturing instruments, and the floor covered with 
clotted blood and scattered brains, our theatric reverie would 
be destroyed by disgust, and we should leave the play-house 
with detestation. 

The Painters have been more guilty in this respect than the 
Poets. The cruelty of Apollo in flaying Marsyas alive is a 
favourite subject with the ancient artists : and the tortures of 
expiring martyrs have disgraced the modern ones. It re- 
quires little genius to exhibit the muscles in convulsive action, 
either by the pencil or the chissel, because the interstices are 
deep, and the lines strongly defined: but those tender grada- 
tions of muscular action, which constitute the graceful attitudes 
of the body, are difficult to conceive or to execute, except by 
a master of nice discernment and cultivated taste. 

B. By what definition would you distinguish the Horrid 
from the Tragic ? 

P. I suppose the latter consists of Distress attended with 



INTERLUDE II. 67 

Pity, which is said to be allied to Love, the most agreeable of 
all our passions ; and the former, in Distress, accompanied 
with Disgust, which is allied to Hate, and is one of our most 
disagreeable sensations. Hence, when horrid scenes of cru- 
elty are represented in pictures, we wish to disbelieve their ex- 
istence, and voluntarily exert ourselves to escape from the de- 
ception : whereas the bitter cup of true Tragedy is mingled 
with some sweet consolatory drops, which endear our tears, and 
we continue to contemplate the interesting delusion with a de- 
light which is not easy to explain. 

B. Has not this been explained by Lucretius, where he 
describes a shipwreck, and says, the spectators receive plea- 
sure from feeling themselves safe on land ? and by Akenside, 
in his beautiful poem on the Pleasures of Imagination, who 
ascribes it to our finding objects for the due exertion of our 
passions ? 

P. We must not confound our sensations at the contem- 
plation of real misery with those which we experience at the 
isenical representations of tragedy. The spectators of a ship- 
wreck may be attracted by the dignity and novelty of the object ; 
and from these may be said to receive pleasure ; but not from 
the distress of the sufferers. An ingenious writer, who has 
criticised this dialogue in the English Review, for August, 1 789, 
adds, that one great source of our pleasure from scenical dis- 
tress arises from our, at the same time, generally contemplat- 
ing one of the noblest objects of nature, that of Virtue trium- 
phant over difficulty and oppression, or supporting its votary 
under every suffering: or, where this does not occur, that 
our minds are relieved by the justice of some signal punish- 
ment awaiting the delinquent. But, besides this, at the exhi- 
bition of a good tragedy, we are not only amused by the dig- 
nity, and novelty, and beauty, of the objects before us, but, if 
any distressful circumstances occur too forcibly for our sensi- 
bility, we can voluntarily exert ourselves, and recollect, that 
the scenery is not real ; and thus not only the pain, which we 
had received from the apparent distress, is lessened, but a new 
source of pleasure is opened to us, similar to that which we 
frequently have felt on awaking from a distressful dream: we 
are glad that it is not true. We are, at the same time, unwilling 
to relinquish the pleasure which we receive from the other 



tfB INTERLUDE II. 

interesting circumstances of the drama ; and, on that account, 
quickly permit ourselves to relapse into the delusion ; and thus 
alternatelv believe and disbelieve, almost every moment, the 
existence- of the objects represented before us. 

B. Have those two sovereigns of poetic land, Homer and 
Shakespeare, kept their works entire from the Horrid? — or 
even yourself, in your third Canto ? 

P. The descriptions of the mangled carcases of the com- 
panions of Ulysses, in the cave of Polypheme, is, in this re- 
spect, certainly objectionable, as is well observed by Scaliger. 
And in the play of Titus Andronicus, if that was written by 
Shakespeare (which, from its internal evidence, I think very 
improbable), there are many horrid and disgustful circumstan- 
ces. The following Canto is submitted to the candour of the 
critical reader, to whose opinion I shall submit in silence. 



BOTANIC GARDEN. 



LOVES OF THE PLANTS, 

CANTO III. 

AND now the Goddess sounds her silver shell, 
And shakes with deeper tones the enchanted dell ; 
Pale, round her grassy throne, bedew'd with tears, 
Flit the thin forms of Sorrows, and of Fears j 
Soft sighs, responsive, whisper to the chords, 
And Indignations half-unsheath their swords. 

" Thrice round the grave Circe a prints her tread, 
And chaunts the numbers which disturb the dead ; 



Circaa. 1. 7. Enchanter's Nightshade. Two males, one female. It was 
much celebrated in the mysteries of witchcraft, and for the purpose of rais- 
ing the devil, as its name imports. It grovvs amid the mouldering bones and 
decayed coffins in the ruinous vaults of Sleaford church, in Lincolnshire. 
The superstitious ceremonies or histories belonging to some vegetables have 
been truly ridiculous: Thus the Druids are said to have cropped the Misletoe 
with a golded axe or sickle ; and the Bryony, or Mandrake, was said to utter 
a scream when its root was drawn from the ground ; and that the animal 
which drew it up became diseased, and soon died : on which account, when 
it was wanted Cor the purpose of medicine, it was usual to loosen and remove 
the earth about the root, and then to tie it, by means of a cord, to a 
dog's tail, who was whipped to pull it up, and was then supposed to suffer 
for the impiety of the action. And even at this day bits of dried root of 
Foeny are rubbed smooth, and strung, and sold under the name of Anodyne 
^necklaces, and tied round the necks of children, to facilitate the growth of 
their teeth : add to this, that in Price's History of Cornwall, a book publish- 
ed about ten years ago, the Virga Divinatoria, or Divining Rod, has a de- 
gree of credit given to it. This rod is of hazle, or other light wood, and 
lield horizontally in the hand, and is said to bow towards the ore when- 
ever the Conjuror walks over a mine. A very few years ago, in France, 
and even in England, another kind of divining rod has been used to discover 
springs of water in a similar manner, and gained some credit. And in this 
very year, there were many in France, and some in England, who under- 
went an enchantment without any divining rod at all, and believed thern- 
jselves to be affected by an invisible agent, which the Enchanter called Ani- 
mal Magnetism ! 



70 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part II. 

Shakes o'er the holv earth her sable plume, 

Waves her dread wand, and strikes the echoing tomb ! 10 

— Pale shoot the stars across the troubled night, 

The timorous moon withholds her conscious light ; 

Shrill scream the famish'd bats, and shivering owls, 

And loud and long the dog of midnight howls ! — 

< — Then yawns the bursting ground ! — two imps obscene 15 

.Rise on broad wings, and hail the baleful queen ; 

Each with dire grin salutes the potent wand, 

And leads the Sorceress with his sooty hand ; 

Onward they glide, where sheds the sickly yew, 

O'er many a mouldering bone, its nightly dew ; 20 

The ponderous portals of the church unbar, — 

Hoat-se on their hinge the ponderous portals jar ; 

As through the colour'd glass the moon-beam falls, 

Huge shapeless spectres quiver on the walls ; 

Low murmurs creep along the hollow ground, 25 

And to each step the pealing aisles resound ; 

By glimmering lamps, protecting saints among, 

The shrines all trembling as they pass along, 

O'er the still choir with hideous laugh they move, 

(Fiends yell below, and angels weep above !) 30 

Their impious march to God's high altar bend, 

With feet impure the sacred steps ascend ; 

With wine unbless'd the holy chalice stain, 

Assume the mitre, and the cope profane : 

To heaven their eyes in mock devotion throw, S5 

And to the cross with horrid mummery bow ; 

Adjure by mimic rites the powers above, 

And plight alternate their Satanic love. 

" Avaunt, ye Vulgar ! from her sacred groves, 
With maniac step the Pythian Laura moves ; 4C 

Lcura. 1. 40. Pninus. Lauro-ccrasus. Twenty males, one female. The 
Pythian priestess is supposed to have been made drunk with infusion of laurel- 
leaves when she delivered her oracles. The intoxication or inspiration is 
finely described by Virgil, Mn, lib. vi. The distilled water from laurel-loaves 
is, perhaps, the most sudden poison we are acquainted with in this country. 
I haye Been about two spoonfuls of it destroy a large pointer dog in less than 
ten minutes. In a smaller dose it is said to produce intoxication : on this ac- 
count there is reason to believe it acts in the same manner as opium and vin- 




J I /f///////f//-- 



Canto III. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 

Full of the God her labouring bosom sighs, 

Foam on her lips, and fury in her eyes, 

Strong writhe her limbs, her wild dishevell'd hair 

Starts from her laurel-wreath, and swims in air. — 

While twenty Priests the gorgeous shrine surround, 

Cinctured with ephods, and with garlands crown'd, 

Contending hosts and trembling nations wait 

The firm immutable behests of Fate ; 

— She speaks in thunder from her golden throne, 

With words umviWd, and wisdom not her own. 

" So on his Nightmare, through the evening fog, 
Flits the squab Fiend o'er fen, and lake, and bog ; 
Seeks some love-wilder'd Maid with sleep oppress'-, 
Alights, and, grinning, sets upon her breast. 
— Such as of late, amid the murky sky, 
Was mark'd by Fuseli's poetic eye ; 
Whose daring tints, with Shakespeare's happiest grace, 
Gave to the airy phantom form and place. — 
Back o'er her pillow sinks her blushing head, 
Her snow-white limbs hang helpless from the bed ; 
While with quick sighs, and suffocative breath, 
Her interrupted heart-pulse swims in death. 
—Then shrieks of captured towns, and widows' tears, 
Pale lovers stretch'd upon their blood-stain'd biers, 
The headlong precipice that thwarts her flight, 
The trackless desert, the cold starless night, 
And stern-eyed Murderer, with his knife behind, 
In dread succession agonize her mind. 
O'er her fair limbs convulsive tremors fleet, 
Start in her hands, and struggle in her feet : 
In vain to scream with quivering lips she tries, 
And strains in palsied lids her tremulous eyes ; 



ous spirit; but that the dose is not so well ascertained. See note on Tremella. 
It is used in the Ratifia of the distillers, by which some dram-drinkers have 
been suddenly killed. One pint of water, distilled from fourteen pounds of 
black cherry stones bruised, has the same deleterious effect, destroying as 
suddenly as laurel-water. It is probable Apricot-kernels, Peach-leaves, Wal^ 
nut-leaves, and whatever possesses the kernel-flavour, may have similar qua- 



7Z BOTANIC GARDEN. Part II, 

In vain she wills to run, fly, swim, walk, creep - T 

The Will presides not in the bower of Sleep. 

— On her fair bosom sits the Demon- Ape 7$ 

Erect, and balances his bloated shape ; 

Rolls in their marble orbs his Gorgon-eyes, 

And drinks with leathern ears her tender cries. 

" Arm'd with her ivory beak, and talon-hands, 
Descending Fica dives into the sands ; SO 

Chamber'd in earth, with cold oblivion lies ; 
Nor heeds ye Suitor-train, your amorous sighs ; 
Erewhile with renovated beauty blooms, 
Mounts into air, and moves her leafy plumes. 
— Where Hamps and Manifold, their cliffs among, 85 

Each in his flinty channel winds along ; 



The Will presides not. 1. 74. Sleep consists in the abolition of all voluntary- 
power, both over our muscular motions and our ideas; for we neither walk 
nor reason in sleep. But, at the same time, many of our muscular motions, 
and many of our ideas, continue to be excited into action in consequence of 
internal irritations and of internal sensations ; for the heart and arteries con- 
tinue to beat, and we experience variety of passions, and even hunger and 
thirst, in our dreams. Hence I conclude, that our nerves of sense are not 
torpid or inert during sleep ; but that they are only precluded from the per- 
ception of external objects, by their external organs being rendered unfit to 
"ransmit to them the appulses of external bodies, during the suspension of the 
power of volition ; thus the eye-lids are closed in sleep, and, 1 suppose, the 
tympanum of the ear is not stretched, because they are deprived of the volun- 
tary exertions of the muscles appropriated to these purposes ; and it is pro- 
bable something similar happens to the external apparatus of our other organs 
of sense, which may render them unfit for their office of perception during 
sleep ; for milk put into the months of sleeping babes occasions them to swal- 
low and suck ; and, if the eye-lid is a little opened in the day-light by the ex- 
ertions of disturbed sleep, the person dreams of being much dazzled. See 
first Interlude. 

When there arises in sleep a painful desire to exert the voluntary motions, 
it is called the Nightmare, or Incubus. When the sleep becomes so imper- 
fect that some muscular motions obey this exertion of desire, people have 
walked about, and even performed some domestic offices in sleep ; one of these 
sleep-walkers I have frequently seen: once she smelt of a tube-rose, and sung, 
and drank a dish of tea in this state; her awaking was always attended with 
prodigious surprize, and even fear : this disease had daily periods, and seemed 
to be of the epileptic kind. 

Ficus indica. 1. 80. Indian Fig-tree. Of the class Polygamy. This large 
tree rises with opposite branches on all sides, with long edged leaves; each 
branch emits a slender flexile depending appendage from its summit, like a 
cord, which roots into the earth, and rises again. Sloan. Hist, of Jamaica 
Lin. Spec. Plant. See Capri -ficus. 



Canto III. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 73 

With lucid lines the dusky moor divides, 

Hum ing to intermix their sister tides : 

Where still their silver -bosom'd Nymphs abhor 

The blood-smear 'd mansion of gigantic Thor, — ■ 90 

— Erst, fires volcanic in the marble womb 

Of cloud-wrapp'd Wetton raised the massy dome ; 

Rocks rear'd on rocks in huge disjointed piles 

Form the tall turrets, and the lengthen'd aisles ; 

Broad ponderous piers sustain the roof, and wide 95 

Branch the vast rainbow ribs from side to side. 

While from above descends, in milky streams, 

One scanty pencil of illusive beams, 

Suspended crags and gaping gulfs illumes, 

And gilds the horrors of the deepen'd glooms. 10t> 

— Here oft the Naiads, as they chanced to play 

Near the dread Fane on Thor's returning day, 

Saw from red altars streams of guiltless blood 

Stain their green reed-beds, and pollute their flood j 

Heard dying babes in wicker prisons wail, 105 

And shrieks of matrons thrill the affrighted Gale ; 



Gigantic Thor. 1. 90. Near the village of Wetton, a mile or two above 
Dove-Dale, near Ashburn, in Derb> shire, there is a spacious cavern about 
the middle of the ascent of the mountain, which still retains the name of 
Thor's house ; below it is an extensive and romantic cemmon, where the ri- 
vers Hamps and Manifold sink into the earth, and rise again in Ham gardens, 
the seat of John Port, Esq. about three miles below. Where these rivers rise 
again, there are impressions resembling Fish, which appear to be of Jasper 
bedded in Lime-stone. Calcareous Spars, Shells converted into a kind of Agate, 
corallines in Marble, ores of Lead, Copper, and Zink, and many strata of Flint, 
or Chert, and of Toadstone, or Lava, abound in this part of the country. The 
Druids are said to have offered human sacrifices enclosed in wicker idols to 
Thor. Thursday had its name from this Deity. 

The broken appearance of the surface of many parts of this country, with 
the Swallows, as they are called, or basons on some of the mountains, like 
volcanic Craters, where the rain-water sinks into the earth; and the numer- 
ous large stones, which seem to have been thrown over the land by volcanic 
explosions ; as well as the great masses of Toadstone, or Lava, evince the ex- 
istence of violent earthquakes at some early period of the world. At this time 
the channels of these subterraneous rivers seem to have been formed when a. 
long tract of rocks were raised by the sea flowing in upon the central fires, 
and thus producing an irresitible explosion of steam ; and when these rocks 
again subsided, their parts did not exactly correspond, but left a long cavity 
arched over in this operation of nature. The cavities at Castleton and Buxton, 
in Derbyshire, seem to have had a similar origin, as well as this cavern termeri 
Thor's house. See Mr. Whitehurst's and Dr, Hutton's Theories, of the earth. 

Part II. K 



74 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part II. 

"While from dark caves infernal Echoes mock, 

And Fiends triumphant shout from every rock ! 

— So still the Nymphs emerging lift in air 

Their snow-white shoulders and their azure hair ; 110 

Sail with sweet grace the dimpling streams along, 

Listening the Shepherd's or the Miner's song ; 

But, when afar they view the giant-cave, 

On timorous fins they circle on the wave, 

With streaming eyes and throhbing hearts recoil, 115 

Plunge their fair forms, and dive beneath the soil. — 

Closed round their heads reluctant eddies sink, 

And wider rings successive dash the brink.— 

Three thousand steps in sparry clefts they stray, 

Or seek through sullen mines their gloomy way ; 120 

On beds of Lava sleep in coral cells, 

Or sigh o'er jasper fish, and agate shells. 

Till, where famed Ilam leads his boiling floods 

Through flowery meadows and impending woods, 

Pleased with light spring they leave the dreary night, 125' 

And 'mid circumfluent surges rise to light ; 

Shake their bright locks, the widening vale pursue, 

Their sea-green mandes fringed with pearly dew ; 

In playful groups by towering Thorp they move, 

Bound o'er the foaming wears, and rush into the Dove. 130 

" With fierce distracted eye Impatiens stands, 
Swells her pale cheeks, and brandishes her hands, 

Impatiens. 1. 151. Touch me not. The seed-vessel consists of one cell 
with five divisions; each of these, when the seed is ripe, on being touched 
suddenly, folds itself into a spiral form, leaps from the stalk, and disperses the 
seeds to a great distance by its elasticity. The capsule of the geranium and 
ihe beard of wild oats are twisted for a similar purpose, and diskxlge their 
seeds on wet days, when the ground is best fitted to receive them. Hence 
one of these, with its adhering capsule or beard fixed on a s'and, serves the 
purpose of an !■ _■ /'.meter, twisting itself more or less according to the mois- 
ture of the air 

The awn of barley is furnished with stiff po'nts, which, like the teeth of 
a saw, are all turned towards one end of it; as this long awn lies upon the. 
ground, it exten Is itself in the moist air of night, anJ pushes forwards the 
barleycorn, which it adheres to; in the day it shortens as it dries; and as 
these points prevent it from receding, it draws up its pointed end ; and thus,, 
creeping like a worm, will travel many feet from the parent stem. That 
very ingenious Mechanic Philosopher, Mr. Edgworth, once made on this 
principle a wooden automaton; its back consisted oi sou Fir-wood, about 



Canto III. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. JT5 

With rage and hate the astonish'd groves alarms, 

And hurls her infants from her frantic arms. 

— So when Media left her native soil 13$ 

Unawed by danger, unsubdued by toil ; 

Her weeping sire and beckoning friends withstood, 

And launch'd enamour'd on the boiling flood ; 

One ruddy boy her gentle lips caress'd, 

And one fair girl was pillow'd on her breast ; 140 

While high in air the golden treasure burns, 

And Love and Glory guide the prow by turns. 

But, when Thessalia's inauspicious plain 

Received the matron-heroine from the main ; 

While horns of triumph sound, and altars burn, i45 

And shouting nations hail their Chief's return ; 

Aghast, she saw new-deck'd the nuptial bed, 

And proud Creusa to the temple led; 

Saw her in Jason's mercenary arms 

Deride her virtues, and insult her charms j i50 

Saw her dear babes from fame and empire torn., 

In foreign realms deserted and forlorn ; 

Her love rejected, and her vengeance braved, 

By him her beauties won, her virtues saved. — « 

With stern regard she eyed the traitor -king, 155 

And felt, Ingratitude! thy keenest sting; 

u Nor Heaven," she cried, " nor Earth, nor Hell can hold 

" A Heart abandon'd to the thirst of Gold !" 

Stamp'd with wild foot, and shook her horrent brow, 

And call'd the furies from their dens below. 160 

i — Slow out of earth, before the festive crowds, 

On wheels of fire, amid a night of clouds, 

Drawn by fierce fiends, arose a magic car, 

Received the Queen, and hovering flamed in air. — * 

an inch square and four feet long, made of pieces cut the cross way in re- 
spect to the fibres of the wood, and glued together: it had two feet before,, 
and two behind, which supported the back horizontally; but were placed 
with their extremities, which were armed with sharp points of iron, bend- 
ing backwards. Hence, in moist weather, the back lengthened, and the 
two foremost feet were pushed forwards ; in dry weather the hinder feet 
were drawn after, as the obliquity of the points of the feet prevented it from 
receding. And thus, in a month or two, it walked across the room which it 
inhabited. Might not this machine be applied as an Hygrometer to some me- 
teorological purpose ? 



76 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part II. 

As with raised hands the suppliant traitors kneel, 16 J 

And fear the vengeance they deserve to feel, 

Thrice with parch'd lips her guiltless bahes she press'd, 

And thrice she clasp'd them to her tortured breast ; 

Awhile with white uplifted eyes she stood, 

Then plunged her trembling poniards in their blood. 1 TO 

" Go, kiss your sire ! go, share the bridal mirth !" 

She cry'd, and hurl'd their quivering limbs on earth. 

Rebellowing thunders rock the marble towers, 

And red-tongued lightnings shoot their arrowy showers ; 

Earth yawns ! — the crashing ruin sinks ! — o'er all 175 

Death with black hands extends his mighty Pall ; 

Their mingling gore the Fiends of Vengeance quaff. 

And Hell receives them with convulsive laugh, 

" Round the vex'd isles where fierce tornadoes roar, 
Or tropic breezes sooth the sultry shore, 1 8c 

What time the eve her gauze pellucid spreads 
O'er the dim flowers, and veils the misty meads ; 
Slow o'er the twilight sands or leafy walks, 
With gloomy dignity Dictamna stalks ; 



Dktamr.us. 1. 184. Fraxinella. In the still evenings of dry seasons this 
plant emits an inflammable air or gas, and flashes on the approach of a can- 
dle. There are instances of human creatures who have taken fire spontane- 
ously, and been totally consumed. Phil. Trans. 

The odours of many flowers, so delightful to our sense of smell, as well as 
the disagreeable scents of others, are owing to the exhalation of their essential 
oils. These essential oils have greater or less volatility, and are all inflam- 
mable ; many of them are poisons to us, as those of Laurel and Tobacco ; 
others possess a narcotic quality, as is evinced by the oil of cloves instantly 
yelieving slight tooth-achs ; from oil of cinnamon relieving the hiccup : and 
balsam of Peru relieving the pain of some ulcers. They are all deleterious to 
certain insects, and hence their use in the vegetable economy being produced 
in flowers or Jeaves to protect them from the depredations of their voracious 
enemies. One of the essential oils, that of turpentine, is recommended by 
M. de Thosse, for the purpose of destroying insects which infect both vege- 
tables and animals. Having observed that the trees were attacked by multi- 
tudes of small insects of different colours (pucins ou pucerons), which injured 
their young branches, he destroyed them all entirely in the following man- 
lier : he put into a bowl a few handfuls of earth, on which he poured a small 
quantity of oil of turpentine ; he then beat the whole together with a spa- 
tula, pouring on it water till it became of the consistence of soup : with this 
mixture lie moistened the ends of the branches, and both the insects and their 
rgp;s wire destroyed, and other insects kept aloof by the scent of the turpen- 
tine. He adds, that he destroyed the fleas of his puppies by once bathing 
them in warm water, impregnated with oil of turpentine. Mem, d'Agriculr 



Canto III. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 77 

In sulphurous eddies round die weird dame 185 

Plays the light gas, or kindles into flame. 

If rests the traveller his weary head, 

Grim Mancinella haunts the mossy bed, 

Brews her black hebenon, and, stealing near, 

Pours the curst venom in his tortured ear. — 190 

Wide o'er the mad'ning throng Urtica flings 

Her barbed shafts, and darts her poison'd stings. 

And fell Lobelia's suffocating breath 

Loads the dank pinion of the gale with death. 

tuve, An. l"8r. Tremest. Prmtemp. p. 109. I sprinkled some oil of turper.. 
tine, by means of a brush, on some branches of a nectarine tree, which was 
covered with the aphis, but it killed both the insect and the branches : a so- 
lution of arsenic much diluted did the same. The shops of medicine are sup- 
plied with resins, balsams, and essential oils; and the tar and pitch, for me- 
chanical purposes, are produced from these vegetable secretions. 

Mancine'da. 1. 188. Hippomane. With the milky juice of this tree the 
Indians poison their arrows ; the dew-drops which fall from it are so caustic 
as to blister the skin, and produce dangerous ulcers ; whence many have found 
their death by sleeping under its shade. Variety of noxious plants abound in 
all countries ; in our own, the deadly nightshade, henbane, hounds-tongue, 
and many others, are seen in almost every high road, untouched by animals. 
Some have asked, what is the use of such abundance of poisons? The nau- 
seous or pungent juices of some vegetables, like the thorns of others, are given 
them for their defence from the depredations of animals; hence the thorny 
plants are, in general, wholesome and agreeable food to graniverous animals. 
See note on Ilex. The flowers or petals of plants are, perhaps, in general, 
more acrid than their leaves ; hence they are much seldomer earen by insects. 
This seems to have been the use of the essential oil in the vegetable economy, 
as observed above, in the notes on Dictamnus and Ilex. The fragrance of 
plants is thus a part of their defence. These pungent or nauseous juices of 
vegetables have supplied the science of medicine with its principal materials, 
such as purge, vomit, intoxicate, &c, 

Urtica. 1. 191. Nettle. The sting has a bag at its base, and a perforation 
near its point, exactly like the stings of wasps and the teeth of adders. Hook, 
Microgr. p. 142. Is the fluid contained in this bag, and pressed through the 
perforation into the wound made by the point, a caustic essential oil, or a 
concentrated vegetable acid ? The vegetable poisons, like the animal ones, 
produce more sudden and dangerous ehects, when instilled into a wound, than 
when taken into the stomach ; whence the families of Marsi and Psilli, in 
ancient Rome, sucked the poison, without injury, out of wounds made by 
vipers, and were supposed to be indued with supernatural powers for this pur- 
pose. By the experiments related by JBeccaria, it appears, that four or five 
times the quantity, taken by the mouth, had about equal effects with that in- 
fused into a wound. The male flowers of the nettle are separate from the fe- 
male, and the anthers are seen, in fair weather, to burst with force, and to 
discharge a dust, which hovers about the plant like a cloud. 

Lobelia. 1. 193. Longiflora. Grows in the West-Indies, and spreads such 
deleterious exhalations around it, that an oppression of the breast is felt on ap- 
proaching it a,t many feet distance, when placed in the coiner of a room ov 



78 BOTANIC GARDENS Part IL 

> — With fear and hate they blast the affrighted groves, 195 

Yet own with tender care their kindred Loves / — 

" So, where Palmira, 'mid her wasted plains, 
Her shatter'd aqueducts, and prostrate fanes, 
(As the bright orb of breezy midnight pours 
Long threads of silver through her gaping towers, 200 

O'er mouldering tombs, and tottering columns gleams, 
And frosts her deserts with diffusive beams), 
Sad o'er the mighty wreck in silence bends, 
Lifts her wet eyes, her tremulous hands extends.—- 
If from lone cliffs a bursting rill expands 205 

Its transient course, and sinks into the sands ; 
O'er the moist rock the fell Hyaena prowls, 
The Leopard hisses, and the Panther growls ; 
On quivering Aving the famish'd Vulture screams, 
Dips his dry beak, and sweeps the gushing streams ; 210 

With foaming jaws, beneath, and sanguine tongue, 
Laps the lean Wolf, and pants, and runs along ; 
Stern stalks the Lion, on the rustling brinks 
Hears the dread Snake, and trembles as he drinks ; , 
Quick darts the scaly Monster o'er the plain, 215 

Fold, after fold, his undulating train ; 
And bending o'er the lake his crested brow, 
Starts at the Crocodile that gapes below. 

" Where seas of glass with gay reflection smile 
Round the green coast of Java's palmy isle ; 220 

hot-house. Ingenhouz, Exper. on Air, p. 146. Jacquini hort. botanic. Vin- 
deb. The exhalations from ripe fruit, or withering leaves, are proved much 
to injure the air in which they are confined ; and it is probable, all those ve- 
getables which emit a strong scent may do this in a greater or less degree, 
from the Rose to the Lobelia; whence the unwholesomeness in living perpe- 
tually in such an atmosphere of perfume as some people wear about their hair, 
or cany in their handkerchiefs. Either Boevhaave or Dr. Mead have af- 
firmed, they were acquainted with a poisonous fluid, whose vapour would 
presently destroy the person who sat near it. And it is well known, that the 
gas from fomenting liquors, or obtained from lime-stone, will destroy animals 
immersed in it, as well as the vapour of the Grotto del Cani, near Naples. 

So, where Palmira. 1. 197. Among the ruins of Palmira, which are dis- 
persed not only over the plains, but even in the deserts, there is one single 
colonade above 2600 yards long, the bases of the Corinthian columns of which 
exceed the height of a man ; and yet this row is only a small part of the re- 
mains of that one edifice. Volney's Travels. 



Canto III. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 79 

A spacious plain extends its upland scene, 

Rocks rise on rocks, and fountains gush between ; 

Soft zephyrs blow, eternal summers reign, 

And showers prolific bless the soil, — in vain ! 

—No spicy nutmeg scents the vernal gales, 225 

Nor towering plantain shades the mid-day vales ; 

No grassy mantle hides the sable hills, 

No flowery chaplet crowns the trickling rills ; 

Nor tufted moss, nor leathery lichen creeps 

In russet tapestry o'er the crumbling steeps. 230 

—No step retreating, on the sand impress'd, 

Invites the visit of a second guest ; 

No refluent fin the unpeopled stream divides, 

No revolant pinion cleaves the airy tides ; 

Nor handed moles, nor beaked worms return, 235 

That mining pass the irremeable bourn.— 

Fierce in dread silence on the blasted heath 

Fell Upas sits, the Hydra-Tree of death. 

Lo ! from one root, the envenom'd soil below, 

A thousand vegetative serpents grow, 240 

In shining rays the scaly monster spreads 

O'er ten square leagues his far-diverging heads j 

Or in one trunk entwists his tangled form, 

Looks o'er the clouds, and hisses in the storm. 

Steep'd in fell poison, as his sharp teeth part, 245 

A thousand tongues in quick vibration dart ; 

Snatch the proud Eagle towering o'er the heath, 

Or pounce the Lion, as he stalks beneath j 

Upas. 1. 258. There is a poison-tree in the island of Java, which is said, 
by its effluvia, to have depopulated the country for 12 or 14 miles round the 
place of its growth. It is called, in the Malayan language, Bohon-Upas; 
with the juice of it the most poisonous arrows are prepared ; and, to gain 
this, the condemned criminals are sent to the tree, with proper direction 
both to get the juice, and to secure themselves from the malignant exhalations 
of the tree ; and are pardoned if they bring back a certain quantity of the 
poison. But, by the registers there kept, not one in four are said to return. 
Not only animals of all kinds, both quadrupeds, fish, and birds, but all kinds 
of vegetables also, are destroyed by the effluvia of the noxious tree ; so that, 
in a district of 12 or 14 miles round it, the face of the earth is quite barren! 
and rocky, intermixed only with the skeletons of men and animals, affording 
a scene of melancholy beyond what poets have described or painters deline- 
ated. Two younger trees of its own species are said to grow near it. See 
London Magazine for 1784 or 1783. Translated from a description of the 
poison-tree of the island of Java, written in Dutch, by N. P. Foersch, 
For a further account of it, see a note at the end of the work. 



SO BOTANIC GARDEN. Ram II. 

Or strew, as marshall'd hosts contend in vain, 

With human skeletons the whiten'J plain. 250 

— Chain'd at liis foot two scion-demons dwell, 

Breathe the faint hiss, or try the shriller yell ; 

Rise, fluttering in the air on callow wings, 

And aim at insect-prey their little stings. 

So Time's strong arms widi sweeping scythe erase 255 

Art's cumberous works, and empires, from their base: 

While each young Hour its sickle fine employs, 

And crops the sweet buds of domestic joys ! 

" With blushes bright as morn fair Orchis charms, 
And lulls her infant in her fondling arms ; 260 

Orchis. I. 259. The Orchis morio, in the circumstance of the parent-root 
shrivelling up and dying, as the young one increases, is not only analogous tu 
tither tuberous or knobby roots, but also to some bulbous roots, as the tulip. 
The manner of the production of herbaceous plants from their various peren- 
nial roots, seems to want further investigation, as their analogy is not yet 
clearly established. The caudex, or true root, in the orchis, lies above the 
knob ; and from this part the fibrous roots and the new knob are produced. 
In the tulip the caudex lies below the bulb ; from whence proceed the fibrous 
roots and the new bulbs: the root, after it has flowered, dies like the orchis- 
root ; for the stem of the last year's tulip lies on the outside, and not in the 
centre of the bulb ; which, I am informed, does not happen in the three or 
four first years when raised from seed, when it only produces a stem, and 
slender leaves without flowering. In the tulip-root, dissected in the early 
spring, just before it begins to shoot, a perfect flower is seen in its centre ; 
and between the first and second coat the large next year's bulb is, I believe, 
produced ; between the second and third coat, and between this and the 
fourth coat, and perhaps further, other less and less bulbs are visible, all adjoin- 
ing to the caudex at the bottom of the mother bulb ; and which, I am told, 
require as many years before they will flower as the number of the coats with 
which they are covered. This annual re-production of the tulip-root induces 
some florists to believe that tulip-roots never die naturally, as they lose so few 
of them ; whereas the hyacinth-roots, I am informed, will not last above five 
or seven years after they have flowered. 

The hyacinth-root differs from the tulip-root, as the stem of the last year's 
flower is al a ays found in the centre of the root, and the new offsets arise from 
the caudex below the bulb, but not beneath any of the concentric coats of the 
root, except the external one ; hence Mr. Eaton, an ingenious florist of Der- 
by, to whom I am indebted for most of the observations in this note, con- 
cludes, that the hyacinth-root does not perish annually after it has flowered 
'■ike the tulip. Mr. Eaton gave me a tulip-root which had been set too deep in 
She earth, and the caudex had elongated itself near an inch, and the new bulb 
was tunned above the old one, and detached from it, instead of adhering tu 
Us side. See additional notes to Part I. No. XIV. 

The caudex of the ranunculus, cultivated by the florists, lies above the claw* 
. in this the old root or claws die annually, like the tulip and orchil, 
and tl i.<-v. claws, which are seen above the old ones, draw down the cau- 
said to happen to S 



Canto III. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 81 

Soft plays Affection round her bosom's throne, 

And guards his life, forgetful of her own. 

So wings the wounded deer her headlong flight, 

Pierced by some ambush'd archer of the night, 

Shoots to the woodlands with her bounding fawn, 265 

And drops of blood bedew the conscious lawn ; 

There, hid in shades, she shuns the cheerful day, 

Hangs o'er her young, and weeps her life away. 

" So stood Eliza on the wood-crown'd height, 
O'er Minden's plain, spectatress of the fight : €7"0 

Sought with bold eye amid the bloody strife 
Her dearer self, the partner of her life ; 
From hill to hill the rushing host pursued, 
And vicw'd his banner, or believed she view'd. 
Pleased with the distant roar, with quicker tread 275 

Fast by his hand one lisping boy she led ; 
And one fair girl amid the loud alarm 
Slept on her 'kerchief, cradled by her arm ; 
While round her brows bright beams of Honour dart, 
And Love's warm eddies circle round her heart. 280 

i — Near and more near the intrepid Beauty press'd, 
Saw through the driving smoke his dancing crest ; 
Saw on his helm, her virgin-hands inwove, 
Bright stars of gold, and mystic knots of love ; 
Heard the exulting shout, " they run ! they run !" 285 

" Great God !" she cried, " he's safe ! the battle's won !" 
— A ball now hisses through the airy tides, 
(Some Furj' wing'd it, and some Demon guides !) 
Parts the fine locks her graceful head that deck, 
Wounds her fair ear, and sinks into her neck ; 290 

The red stream, issuing from her azure veins, 
Dyes her white veil, her ivory bosom stains.— 
— " Ah me !" she cried, and, sinking on the ground, 
Kiss'd her dear babes, regardless of the wound ; 

bit, and some other plants, as valerian and greater plantain ; the new fibrous 
roots rising round the caudex above the old ones, the inferior end of the root 
becomes stumped, as if cut off, after the old fibres are decayed, and the 
caudex is drawn down into the earth by these new roots. Se« Arum and 
Tulipa. 

Part IL L 



an BOTANIC GARDEN. Part II. 

w Oh, cease not vet to beat, thou Vital Urn ! 

" Wait, gushing Life, oh, wait my Love's return ! — 

" Hoarse barks the wolf, the vulture screams from far ! — 

" The angel, Pity, shuns the walks of war ! — 

" Oh, spare, ye War-hounds, spare their tender age ! — 

M On me, on me," she cried, •* exhaust your rage !" — 300 

Then with weak arms her weeping babes caress'd, 

And, sighing, hid them in her blood-stain'd vest. 

" From tent to tent the impatient warrior flies, 
Fear in his heart, and frenzv in his eyes ; 
Eliza's name along the camp he calls, 305 

Eliza echoes through the canvass walls ; 
Quick through the murmuring gloom his footsteps tread 
0*er groaning heaps, the dying and the dead, 
Vault o'er the plain, and in the tangled wood, 
Lo ! dead Eliza weltering in her blood ! — 310 

— Soon hears his listening son the welcome sounds, 
With open arms and sparkling eyes he bounds : — 
" Speak low," he cries, and gives his little hand, 
" Eliza sleeps upon the dew-cold sand ; 

" Poor weeping babe with bloody fingers press'd, 3 1 J 

" And tried with pouting lips her milkless breast ; 
" Alas ! we both with cold and hunger quake — 
" Why do you weep ? — Mamma will soon awake." 
->— u She'll wake no more !" the hopeless mourner cried, 
Upturn'd his eyes, and clasp'd his hands, and sigh'd ; 320 
Stretch'd on the ground awhile entranced he lay, 
And press'd warm kisses on the lifeless clay; 
And then upsprung with wild convulsive start, 
And all the Father kindled in his heart ; 

" Oh, Heavens !" he cried, " my first rash vow forgive? 325 
" These bind to earth, for these I pray to live !" — 
Round his chill babes he wrapp'd his crimson vest, 
And clasp'd them sobbing to his aching breast. 

" Two Harlot-Nymphs, the fair Cuscutas, please 
With labour'd negligence, and studied ease ; 330 

Cusaita. 1.329. Dodder. Four males, two females. This parasite plant 

(the seed splitting without cotyledons) protrudes a spiral boJ>, and not endea- 



Canto III. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 8.8 

In the meek garb of modest worth disguised, 

The eye averted, and the smile chastised, 

With sly approach they spread their dangerous charms, 

And round their victim wand their wiry arms. 

So by Scamander when Laocoon stood, 335 

Where Troy's proud turrets glitter'cl in the flood, 

Raised high his arm, and with prophetic call, 

To shrinking realms announced her fated fall ; 

WhhTd his fierce spear with more than mortal force, 

And pierced the thick ribs of the echoing horse ; 340 

Two Serpent-forms incumbent on the main, 

Lashing the white waves with redundant train, 

Arch'd their blue necks, and sbook their towering crests, 

And plough'd their foamy way with speckled breasts ; 

Then, darting fierce amid the affrighted throngs, 345 

Roll'd their red eyes, and shot their forked tongues,— ? 

vouring to root itself in the earth, ascends the vegetables in its vicinity, spi- 
rally W. S. E. or contrary to the movement of the sun ; and absorbs its nou- 
rishment by vessels apparently inserted into its supporters. It bears no leaves, 
except here and there a scale, very small, membraneous, and close under t,he 
branch. Lin. Spec. Plant, edit, a Reichard, vol. i. page 352. The Rev. T. 
Martyn, in his elegant letters on botany, adds, that, not content with sup- 
port, where it lays hold, there it draws its nourishment; and at length, in 
gratitude for all this, strangles its entertainer. Letter xv. A contest for air 
and light obtains throughout the whole vegetable world ; shrubs rise above 
herbs, and, by precluding the air and light from them,, injure or destroy 
them ; trees suffocate or incommode ^hrubs ; the parasite climbing plants, as 
Ivy, Clematis, incommode the taller trees; and other parasites which exist 
without having roots on the ground, as Misletoe, Tillandsia, Epidendrum, 
and the mosses and funguses, incommode them all. 

Some of the plants with voluble stems ascend other plants spirally east- 
south-west, as Humulus, Hop, Lonicera, Honey-suckle, Tamus, black Bry- 
ony, Helxine. Others turn their spiral stems west-south-east, as Convolvu- 
lus, Corn-bind, Phaseolus, Kidney-bean, Basella, Cynanche, Euphorbia, Eu- 
patorium. The proximate or final causes of this difference have not been in- 
vestigated. Other plants are furnished with tendrils for the purpose of 
climbing ; if the tendril meets with nothing to lay hold of in its first revolu- 
tion, it makes another revolution ; and so on till it wraps itself quite up like a 
cork-screw: hence, to a careless observer, it appears to move gradually back- 
wards and forwards, being seen sometimes pointing eastward and sometimes 
westward. One of the Indian grasses, Panicum arborescens, whose stem is 
no thicker than a goose-quill, rises as high as the tallest trees in this contest 
for light and air. Spec. Plant, a Reichard, vol. i. p. 161. The tops of many 
climbing plants are tender from their quick growth ; and, when deprived of 
their acrimony by boiling, are an agreeable article of food. The Hop-tops 
are in common use. I have eaten the tops of white Bryony, Bryonia alba, 
and found them nearly as grateful as Asparagus, and think this plant might 
be profitably cultivated as an early garden-vegetable.- The Tamus (called black. 
Bryony) was less agreeable to the taste when boiled. See Galanthus. 



84 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part II. 

— Two daring youths to guard the hoary sire, 

Thwart their dread progress, and provoke their ire. 

Round sire and sons the scaly monsters roll'd, 

Ring above ring, in many a tangled fold, 35< 

Close and more close their writhing limbs surround, 

And fix with foamy teeth die envenom'd wound. 

— With brow upturn'd to heaven, the holy Sage 

In silent agony sustains their rage ; 

While each fond youth, in vain, with piercing cries, 355 

Bends on the tortured Sire his dying eyes. 

" Drink deep, sweet youths," seductive Vitis cries, 
The maudlin tear-drop glittering in her eyes ; 
Green leaves and purple clusters crown her head, 
And the tall Thyrsus stays her tottering tread. 360 

— Five hapless swains, with soft assusive smiles, 
The harlot meshes in her deathful toils ; 
" Drink deep," she carols, as she waves in air 
The mantling goblet, " and forget your care." — 
O'er the dread feast malignant Chemia scowls, 365 

And mingles poison in the nectar' d bowls ; 
Fell Gout peeps, grinning, through the flimsy scene, 
And bloated Dropsy pants behind unseen ; 
Wrapp'd in his robe white Lepra hides his stains, 
And silent Frenzy, writhing, bites his chains. 3 TO 

" So when Prometheus braved the Thunderer's ire, 
Stole from his blazing throne ethereal fire, 



Vitk. 1 357. Vine. Five males, one female. The juice of the ripe grape 
is a nutritive and agreeable food, consisting chiefly of sugar and mucilage. 
The chemical process of fermentation converts this sugar into spirit; converts 
food into poison! And it lias thus become the curse of the Christian world, 
producing more than half of <>ur chronical diseases ; which Mahomet ( bserved, 
and forbade the use of it to his disciples. The Arabians invented distillation ; 
and thus, by obtaining the spirit of fermented liquors in a less diluted state, 
added to its destructive quality. A theory of the Diabetes and Dropsy, pro- 
duced by drinking fermented or spirituous liquors, is explained in a Treatise 
on the inverted Motions of the Lymphatic System, published by Dr Darwin. 

Pronwtbrus. 1.371. The ancient story of Prometheus, who concealed iii 
hia bosom the fire he had stolen, and afterwprds bad a vulture perpetually 
knawing his liver, affords so apt an allegory for the effects of drinking spiri- 
•-^ous liquors, that one should be induced to think the art of distillation, as well 



Canto III. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 

And lantern'd in his breast, from realms of day 
Bore the bright treasure to his Man of clay ; — 
High on cold Caucasus by Vulcan bound, 
The lean impatient Vulture fluttering round, 
His writhing limbs in vain he twists and strains 
To break or loose the adamantine chains. 
The gluttonous bird, exulting in his pangs, 
Tears his swoln liver with remorseless fangs. 
The gentle Cyclamen, with dewy eye, 
Breathes o'er her lifeless babe the parting sigh ; 
And, bending low to earth, with pious hands 
Inhumes her dear departed in the sands, 
" Sweet Nursling ! withering in thy tender hour, 
" Oh, sleep," she cries, " and rise a fairer flower !" 
— So when the Plague o'er London's gasping crowds 
Shook her dank wing, and steer'd her murky clouds ; 
When o'er the friendless bier no rites were read, 
No dirge slow-chaunted, and no pall out-spread ; 
While Death and Night piled up the naked throng, 
And Silence drove their ebon cars along ; 
Six lovely daughters, and their father, swept 
To the throng'd grave Cleone saw, and wept ; 



as some other chemical processes (such as calcining gold), had been known 
in times of great antiquity, and lost again. The swallowing drams cannot be 
better represented in hieroglyphic language than by taking lire into one's bo- 
som ; and certain it is, that the general effect of drinking fermented or spiritu- 
ous liquors is an inflamed schirrous, or paralytic liver, with its various criti- 
cal or consequential diseases, as leprous eruptions on the face, gout, dropsy, 
epilepsy, insanity. It is remarkable, that all the diseases from drinking spi- 
rituous or fermented liquors are liable to become hereditary, even to the third 
generation, gradually increasing, if the cause be continued, till the family be- 
comes extinct. 

Cyclamen. 1.381. Shew-bread, or Show -bread. When the seeds are ripe 
the stalk of the flower gradually twists itself spirally downwards till it touches 
the ground, and, forcibly penetrating the earth, lodges its seeds, which are 
thought to receive nourishment from the parent root, as they are said not to 
be made to grow in any other situation. 

The Trifolium subterraneum, subterraneous trefoil, is another plant which 
buries its seeds, the globular head of the seed penetrating the earth; which, 
however, in this plant, may be only an artempt to conceal its seeds from the 
ravages of birds ; for there is another trefoil, the Trifolium Globosum, or glo- 
bular woolly-headed trefoil, which has a curious manner of concealing its seeds; 
the lower florets only have corols, and are fertile; the upper ones wither into 
a kind of wool, and, forming a head, completely conceal the fertile calyxes. 
Lin. Spec Plant, a Reichard. 



86 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part II. 

Her tender mind, with meek Religion fraught, 395 

Drank, all-resign'd, Affliction's bitter draught; 
Alive, and listening to the whisper'd groan 
Of others' woes, unconscious of her own ! — 
One smiling hoy, her last sweet hope, she warms, 

Hush'd on her bosom, circled in her arms 400 

Daughter of woe! ere morn, in vain caress'd, 

Clung the cold babe upon thy milkless breast, 

With feeble cries thy last sad aid required, 

Stretch'd its stiff limbs, and on thv lap expired ! — 

— Long with wide eye-lids, on her child she gazed, 405 

And long to Heaven their tearless orb she raised ; 

Then with quick foot and throbbing heart she found 

Where Chartreuse open'd deep his holy ground ; 

I3ore her last treasure through the midnight gloom, 

And, kneeling, dropp'd it in the mighty tomb : 410 

4i I follow next!" the frantic mourner said, 

And, living, plunged amid the festering dead, 

u Where vast Ontario rolls his brmeless tides, 
And feeds the trackless forests on his sides, 
Fair Cassia, trembling, hears the howling woods, 415 

And trusts her tawny children to the floods. — 

Where Chartreuse. I. 408. During the plague in London, 1665, one pit to 
receive the dead was dug in the Charter-house, 40 feet long, 16 feet wide, 
and about 20 feet deep; and in two weeks received 1114 bodies. During 
this dreadful calamity there were instances of mothers carrying their own 
children to those public graves, and of people delirious, or in despair from 
the loss of their friends, who threw themselves alive into these pits. Jour- 
nal of the Plague-year in 1665, printed for E. Nutt, Royal Exchange. 

Rolls his brineless tides. 1. 413. Some philosophers have believed that the 
continent of America was not raised out of the great ocean at so early a pe- 
riod of time as the other continents. One reason for this opinion was, be- 
cause the great lakes, perhaps nearly as large as the Mediterranean Sea, con- 
sist of fresh water. And, as the sea-salt stems to have its origin from the 
destruction of vegetable and animal bodies, washed down by rains, and carried 
by rivers into lakes or seas, it would seem that this source of sea-salt had not 
so long existed in that country. There is, however, a more satisfactory way 
of explaining this circumstance; which is, that the American lakes lie above 
i'the ocean, and are hence perpetually desalited by the rivers which 
■ un hrough them ; which is not the case with the Mediterranean, into which 
a current fn m the main ocean perpetually passes. 

11 i. T n mal ;, one f« male. 1 he .seeds are black, the stamens 

This is one of the American fruits which are annual I) thrown 

ts of Norway: and are frequently in so recent a state as t< vege- 

Cite, whei i The fruit of the anaciudium, cashew-nut; 



Canto III. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 87 

Cinctured with gold, while ten fond brothers stand, 

And guard the beauty on her native land ; 

Soft breadu-s the gale, the current gently moves, 

And bears to Norway's coasts her infant loves. 420 

oFcucuibi:a lagenaria, bottle-gourd ; of the mimosa scandens, cocoons ; of the 
piscidia erythrina, logwood-tree ; and cocoa-nuts are enumerated by Dr. 
Tonaing (Amxn. Acad. 149), amongst these emigrant seeds. The fact is 
truly wonderful, and cannot be accounted for but by the existence of tinder 
Currents in the depths of the ocean ; or from vortexes of water passing from 
one country to another through caverns of the earth. 

Si Hans SI ane has given an account of four kinds of seeds, which are 
frequently thrown by the sea upon the coasts of the islands of the northern 
pans of Scotland. Phil. Trans, abridged, vol. iii. p. 540. Which seeds arc 
natives of the West-Indies, and seem to be brought thither by the Gulf- 
stream described below. One of these is called, by Sir H. Sloane, Phaseolu-r, 
maximus perennis, which is often thrown also on the coasts of Kerry, in 
Ireland; another is called, in Jamaica, Horse-eye-bean ; and a third is called 
Nikcr, in Jamaica. He adds, that the Lemicula marina, or Sargosso, grows 
on the rocks about Jamaica, is carried by the winds and current towards the 
toasts of Florida, and thence into the North- American ocean, where it lies 
very thick on the surface of the sea. 

Thus a rapid current passes from the Gulf of Florida to the N. E. along 
the coast of North- America, known to seamen by the name of the Gulf- 
Stream. A chart of this was published by Dr. Franklin in 1768, from the 
information principally of Captain Folger. This was confirmed by the inge- 
nious experiments of Dr. Blaguen, published in 1781; who found that the 
water of the Gulf-stream was from six to eleven degrees warmer than the 
wa'er of the sea through which it ran ; which must have been occasioned by 
its being brought from a hotter climate. He ascribes the origin of this cur- 
rent to the power of the trade-winds, which, blowing always in the same di- 
rection, curry the waters of the Atlantic ocean to the westward, till they are 
stopped by the opposing continent on the west of the Gulf of Mexico, and 
arc thus accumulated there, and run down the Gulf of Florida. Phil. Trans, 
vol. Ixxi. p. 335. Governor Pownal has given an elegant map of this Gulf- 
stream, tracing it from the Gulf of Florida, northward, as far as Cape-Sable, 
in Nova-Scotia, and then across the Atlantic ocean to the coast of Africa, 
between the Canary islands and Senegal, increasing in breadth, as it runs, 
till it occupies rive or six degrees of latitude. The Governor likewise ascribes 
this current to the force of the trade-winds protruding the waters westward, 
till they are opposed by the continent, and accumulated in the Gulf of Mex- 
ico. He very ingeniously observes, that a great eddy must be produced in the 
Atlantic ocean, between this Gulf-stream and the westerly current protruded 
by the tropical winds; and in this eddy are found the immense fields of float- 
ing vegetables, culled Saragosa weeds, and Gulf weeds, and some light- 
woods, which circulate in these vast eddies, or are occasionally driven out of 
them by the winds. Hydraulic and Nautical Observations, by Governor Pow- 
nal, \7'37. Other currents are mentioned by the Governor in this ingenious 
work, as those in the Indian Sea, northward of the line, which are ascribed 
to the influence of the Monsoons. It is probable that, in process of time, the 
narrow tract of land on the west of the Gulf of Mexico, may be worn away 
by this elevation of water dashing against it, by which this immense current 
would cease to exist, and a wonderful change take place in the Gulf of Mex- 
ico and West-Indian islands, by the subsiding of the sea, which might pro- 
bably lay all those islands into one, or join them to the comment. 



88 BOTANIC GARDEN. 

— So the sad mother, at the noon of night, 

From Woody Memphis stole her silent flight ; 

Wrapp'd her dear babe beneath her folded vest, 

And clasp'd the treasure to her throbbing breast, 

With soothing whispers hush'd its feeble crv, 425 

Pressed the soft kiss, and breathed the secret sigh. — 

— With dauntless step she seeks the winding shore, 

He ars unappall'd the glimmering torrents roar ; 

With Paper-flags a floating cradle weaves, 

And hides the smiling boy in Lotus-leaves ; 430 

Gives her white bosom to his eager lips, 

The salt-tears mingling with the milk he sips ; 

Waits on the red-crown'd brink with pious guile, 

And trusts the scalv monsters of the Nile. — 

— Erewhile, majestic, from his lone abode, 435" 

Embassador of Heaven, the Prophet trod ; 

Wrench'd the red scourge from proud Oppression's hands, 

And broke, curst Slaver} 7 ! thy iron bands. 

Hark ! heard ye not that piercing cry, 

Which shook the waves and rent the sky ? — 440 

E'en now, e'eri now, on yonder Western shores 

Weeps pale Despair, and writhing Anguish roars : 

E'en now in Afric's groves with hideous yell 

Fierce Slavery stalks, and slips the dogs of hell; 

From vale to vale the gathering cries rebound, 445 

And sable nations tremble at the sound ! 

— Ye bands of Senators! whose suffrage sways 

Britannia's realms, whom either Ind obeys ; 

Who right the injured, and reward the brave, 

Stretch your strong arm, for ye have power to save I 450 

Throned in the vaulted heart, his dread resort, 

Inexorable Conscience holds his court; 

With still small voice the plots of Guilt alarms, 

Bares his mask'd brow, his lifted hand disarms ; 

But, wrapp'd in night with terrors all his own, 455 

He speaks in thunder, when the deed is done. 

Hear him t ye Senates ! hear this truth sublime, 

" He t who allows Oppression, shares the crime" 



Canto III. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 89 

" No radiant pearl, which crested Fortune wears, 
No gem, thut twinkling hangs from Beauty's ears, 460 

Not the bright stars, which Night's blue arch adorn, 
Nor rising suns that gild the vernal mom, 
Shine with such lustre as the tear that flows 
Down Virtue's manly cheek for others' woes." 

Here ceased the Muse, and dropp'd her tuneful shell, 465 
Tumultuous woes her panting bosom swell; 
O'er her flush'd cheek her gauzy veil she throws, 
Folds her white arms, and bends her laurel'd brows ; 
For human guilt awhile the Goddess sighs, 
And human sorrows dim celestial eyes, 470 



Part II. M 



INTERLUDE III. 



Boohe/lcr. 1 OETRY has been called a sister-art both to 
Painting and to Music : I wish to know what are the particu- 
lars of their relationship ? 

Poet. It has been already observed, that the principal part 
of the language of poetry consists of those words which are 
expressive of the ideas, which we originally receive by the or- 
gan of sight ; and, in this, it nearly, indeed, resembles paint- 
ing ; which can express itself in no other way, but by exciting 
the ideas or sensations belonging to the sense of vision. But 
besides this essential similitude in the language of the poetic 
pen and pencil, these two sisters resemble each other, if I may 
so say, in many of their habits and manners. The painter, to 
produce a strong effect, makes a few parts of his picture large, 
distinct, and luminous, and keeps the remainder in shadow, or 
even beneath its natural size and colour, to give eminence to 
the principal figure. This is similar to the common manner 
of poetic composition, where the subordinate characters are 
kept down, to elevate and give consequence to the hero or he- 
roine of the piece. 

In the south aisle of the cathedral church at Lichfield, there 
is an ancient monument of a recumbent figure ; the head and 
neck of which lie on a roll of matting, in a kind of niche or 
cavern in the wall ; and about five feet distant horizontally, in 
another opening or cavern in the wall, are seen the feet and 
ankles, with some folds of garment, lying also on a matt ; and 
though the intermediate space is a solid stone-wall, yet the 
imagination supplies the deficiency, and the whole figure seems 
to exist before our eyes. Does not this resemble one of the 
arts both of the painter and the poet ? The former often shows 
a muscular arm amidst a groupe of figures, or an impassioned 
face ; and, hiding the remainder of the body behind other ob- 
jects, leaves the imagination to complete it. The latter, de- 



92 INTERLUDE III. 

scribing a single feature or attitude in picturesque words, pro- 
ducts before the mind an image of the whole. 

I remember seeing a print, in which was represented a 
shrivelled hand, stretched through an iron grate, in the stone 
floor of a prison-yard, to reach at a mess of porrage, which 
affected me with more horrid ideas of the distress of the pri- 
soner in the dungeon below, than could have been, perhaps, 
produced by an exhibition of the whole person. And, in 
the foil -wing beautiful scenery from the Midsummer-night'? 
Dream (in which I have taken the liberty to alter the place of a 
comma), the description of the swimming step and prominent 
belly bring the w r hole figure before our eyes with the distinct* 
ness of reality. 

When we have laugh'cl to see the sails conceive, 
And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind ; 
Which she with pretty and with swimming gate, 
Following her womb (then rich with my young squire), 
Would imitate, and sail upon the land. 

There is a third sister-feature, which belongs both to the 
pictorial and poetic art; and that is, the making sentiments and 
passions visible, as it were, to the spectator : this is done in 
both arts by describing or pourtraying the effects or changes 
which those sentiments or passions produce upon the bodv. 
At the end of the unaltered play of Lear, there is a beautiful 
example of poetic painting : the old King is introduced as dy- 
ing from grief for the loss of Cordelia : at this crisis, Shakes- 
peare, conceiving the robe of the King to be held together by 
a clasp, represents him as only saying to an attendant courtier, 
in a faint voice, " Pray, Sir, undo this button, — thank you. 
Sir," and dies. Thus, by the art of the poet, the oppression 
at the bosom of the dying King is made visible, not described 
in words. 

B. What are the features in which these sister-arts do not 
resemble each other? 

P. The ingenious Bishop Berkeley, in his Treatise on Vision, 
a work of great ability, has evinced, that the colours which we 
see, are only a language suggesting to our minds the ideas of 
solidity and extension, which we had before received by th'; 



INTERLUDE III. 9£ 

tense of touch. Thus, when we view the trunk of a tree, our 
eye can onlv acquaint us with the colours or shades; and from 
the previous experience of the sense of touch, these suggest 
to us the cylindrical form, with the prominent or depressed 
Wrinkles on it. From hence it appears, that there is the strictest 
analogy between colours and sounds ; as they are both but 
languages, which do not represent their correspondent ideas, 
but only suggest them to the mind, from the habits or associa- 
tions of previous experience. It is, therefore, reasonable to 
conclude, that the more artificial arrange incuts of these two 
languages, by the poet and the painter, bear a similar analog}-. 

But, in one circumstance, the pen and the pencil differ widely 
from each other ; and that is, the quantity of time which they 
can include in their respective representations. The former 
can unravel a long series of events, which may constitute the 
history of days or years ; while the latter can exhibit only the 
actions of a moment. The poet is happier in describing sue* 
cessive scenes; the painter in representing stationary ones: 
both have their advantages. 

Where the passions are introduced, as the poet, on one hand, 
has the power gradually to prepare the mind of his reader by 
previous climacteric circumstances, the painter, on the other 
hand, can throw stronger illumination and distinctness on the 
principal moment or catastrophe of the action ; besides the 
advantage he has in using an universal language, which can be 
read in an instant of time. Thus, when a great number of 
figures are all seen together, supporting or contrasting each 
other, and contributing to explain or aggrandize the principal 
effect, we view a picture with agreeable surprize, and contem- 
plate it with unceasing admiration. In the representation of 
the sacrifice of Jeptha's daughter, a print done from a paint- 
ing of Ant. Coypel, at one glance of the eye we read all the 
interesting passages of the last act of a well-written tragedy ; 
so much poetry is there condensed into a moment of time. 

B. Will you now oblige me with an account of the relation- 
ship between Poetry and her other sister Music ? 

P. In the poetry of our language I don't think we are to 
look for any thing analogous to the notes of the gamut ; for, 
except, perhaps, in a few exclamations or interrogations, we 
are at liberty to raise or sink our voice an octave or wo at 



94 INTERLUDE III. 

pleasure, without altering the sense of the words, Henee, \i 
either poetry or prose be read in melodious tones of voice, as 
is done in recitativo, or in chaunting, it must depend on the 
speaker, not on the writer : for though words may be selected 
which are less harsh than others, that is, which have fewer 
sudden stops, or abrupt consonants amongst the vowels, or 
with fewer sibilant letters, yet this does not constitute melody, 
which consists of agreeable successions of notes referable to 
the gamut ; or harmony, which consists of agreeable combina- 
tions of them. If the Chinese language has many words of 
similar articulation, which yet signify different ideas, when 
spoken in a higher or lower musical note, as some travellers 
aflirm, it must be capable of much finer effect, in respect to the 
audible part of poetry, than any language we are acquainted 
with. 

There is, however, another affinity in which poetry and music 
more nearly resemble each other than has generally been un- 
derstood, and that is in their measure or time. There are but 
two kinds of time acknowledged in modern music, which are 
called triple time and common time. The former of these is 
divided bv bars, each bar containing three crotchets, or a pro- 
portional number of their subdivisions into quavers and semi- 
quavers. This kind of time is analogous to the measure of 
our heroic or iambic verse. Thus the two following couplets 
are each of them divided into five bars of triple time, each bar 
consisting of two crotchets and two quavers ; nor can they be 
divided into bars analogous to common time, without the bars 
interfering with some of the crotchets, so as to divide them. 

."> Soft warbling beaks | in each bright bios | som move, 
T And vo | cal rosebuds thrill | the enchanted grove. | 

In these lines there is a quaver and a crotchet alternately m 
every bar, except in the last, in which the in make two semi- 
quavers ; the e is supposed, by Grammarians, to be cut off, 
which any one's ear will readily determine not to be true. 

:; Life buck or breathes | from Indus to | the | 
~ And the | va? 



INTERLUDE III. 95 

In these lines there is a quaver and a crotchet alternately in 
the first bar ; a quaver, two crotchets, and a quaver, make the 
second bar. In the third bar there is a quaver, a crotchet, and 
a rest after the crotchet, that is, after the word poles, and two 
quavers begin the next line. The fourth bar consists of qua- 
vers and crotchets alternately. In the last bar there is a qua- 
ver, and a rest after it, viz. after the word kindles; and then 
two quavers and a crotchet. You will clearly perceive the truth 
of this, if you prick the musical characters above mentioned 
under the verses. 

The common time of musicians is divided into bars, each of 
which contains four crotchets, or a proportional number of their 
subdivisions into quavers and semiquavers. This kind of mu- 
sical time is analogous to the dactyle verses of our language, 
the most popular instances of which are in Mr. Anstie's Bath- 
Guide. In this kind of verse the bar does not begin till after 
the first or second syllable ; and where the verse is quite com- 
plete, and written by a good ear, these first syllables, added to 
the last, complete the bar, exactly, in this also, corresponding 
with many pieces of music : 

2 Yet | if one may guess by the j size of his calf, Sir, 

4 He | weighs above twenty-three | stone and a half, Sir. 

2 Master | Mamozet's head was not | finish'd so soon, 
4 For it j took up the barber a | whole afternoon. 

In these lines each bar consists of a crotchet, two quavers, 
another crotchet, and two more quavers ; which are equal to 
four crotchets, and, like many bars of common time in music, 
mav be subdivided into two, in beating time without disturbing 
the measure. 

The following verses from Shenstone belong likewise te 
common time: 

2 A | river or a sea | 

*4 Was to him a dish | of tea, 

And a king | dom bread and butter. 

The first and second bars consist each of a crotchet, a quaver, 
a crotchet, a quaver, a crotchet. The third bar consists of a 



96 INTERLUDE III. 

quaver, two crotchets, a quaver, a crotchet. The last bar is not 
complete tuthout adding the letter A, which begins the first 
line, and then it consists of a quaver, a crotchet, a quaver, a 
crotchet, two quavers. 

It must be observed, that the crotchets in triple time are, in 
general, played by musicians slower than diose of common 
time, and hence minuets are generally pricked in triple time, 
and country dances generally in common time. So the verses 
above related, which are analogous to triple time, are generally 
read slower than those analogous to common time; and are 
thence generally used for graver compositions. I suppose all 
the different kinds of verses to be found in our odes, which have 
any measure at all, might be arranged under one or other of 
these two musical times ; allowing a note or two sometimes to 
precede the commencement of the bar, and occasional rests, as 
in musical compositions : if this was attended to by those who 
set poetry to music, it is probable the sound and sense would 
oftener coincide. Whether these musical times can be applied 
to the lvric and heroic verses of the Greek and Latin poets, I do 
not pretend to determine ; certain it is, that the dactyle verse 
of our language, when it is ended with a double rhvme, much 
resembles the measure of Homer and Virgil, except in the 
length of the lines. 

B. Then there is no relationship between the other two of 
these sister-ladies, Painting and Music ? 

P. There is at least a mathematical relationship, or, per- 
haps, I ought rather to have said, a metaphysical relation- 
ship, between them. Sir Isaac Newton has observed, that the 
breadths of the seven primary colours in the Sun's image, re- 
fracted by a prism, are proportional to the seven musical notes 
of the gamut, or to the intervals of the eight sounds contained 
in an octave, that is, proportional to the following numbers : 



Sol. 


La. 


Fa. 


Sol. 


La. 


Mi. Fa. Sol. 


Red. 


Orange. 


Yellow. 


Green. 


Blue. 


Indigo. Violet. 


1 


1 


1 


1 


1 


1 1 



9 1G 10 9 10 16 9 

Newton's Optics, Bool: I. part 2. prop. 3 and 6. Dr. Smith, 



INTERLUDE III. 9f 

in his Harmonics, has an explanatory note upon this happy 
discovery, as he terms it, of Newton. Sect. 4. Art. 7. 

From this curious coincidence, it has been proposed to pro- 
duce a luminous music, consisting of successions or combina- 
tions of colours, analogous to a tune in respect to the propor- 
tions above-mentioned. This might be performed by a strong 
light, made by means of Mr. Argand's lamps, passing through 
coloured glasses, and falling on a defined part of a wall, with 
moveable blinds before them, which might communicate with 
the keys of a harpsichord, and thus produce, at the same time, 
visible and audible music in unison with each other. 

The execution of this idea is said, by Mr. Guyot, to have 
been attempted by Father Caffel, without much success. 

If this should be again attempted, there is another curious 
coincidence between sounds and colours, discovered by Dr. 
Darwin, of Shrewsbury, and explained in a paper on what he 
calls Ocular Spectra, in the Philosophical Transactions, vol. 
Ixxvi. which might much facilitate the execution of it. In this 
treatise the Doctor has demonstrated, that we see certain co- 
lours, not Only with greater ease and distinctness, but with 
relief and pleasure, after having for some time contemplated 
other certain colours; as green after red, or red after green; 
orange after blue, or blue after orange ; yellow after violet, or 
violet after yellow. This, he shows, arises from the ocular 
spectrum of the colour last viewed coinciding with the irritation 
of the colour now under contemplation. Now, as the pleasure 
we receive from the sensation of melodious notes, independent 
of the previous associations of agreeable ideas with them, must 
arise from our hearing some proportions of sounds after others 
more easily, distinctly, or agreeably ; and as there is a coinci- 
dence between the proportions of the primary colours, and the 
primary sounds, if the}' may be so called, he argues, that the 
same laws must govern the sensations of both. In this circum- 
stance, therefore, consists the sisterhood of Music and Paint- 
ing ; and hence they claim a right to borrow metaphors from 
each other; musicians to speak of the brilliancy of sounds, and 
the light and shade of a concerto ; and painters of the harmony 
of colours, and the tone of a picture. Thus it is not quite so 
absurd as was imagined, when the blind man asked if the 
colour scarlet was like the sound of a trumpet. As the coinci- 

Part II. N 



ys INTERLUDE III. 

dence or opposition of these ocular spectra (or colours which 
remain in the eye after we have, for some time, contemplated 
a luminous object), are more easily and more accurately ascer- 
tained, now their laws have been investigated by Dr. Darwin, 
than the relicts of evanescent sounds upon the ear, it is to be 
wished that some ingenious musician would further cultivate 
this curious field of science : for if visible music can be agree- 
ably produced, it would be more easy to add sentiment to it, 
by representations of groves and Cupids, and sleeping Nymphs 
amid the changing colours, than is commonly done by the 
words of audible music. 

B. You mentioned the greater length of the verses of Ho- 
fner and Virgil. Had not these poets great advantage in the 
superiority of their languages compared to our own ? 

P. It is probable, that the introduction of philosophy into 
a country must gradually affect the language of it ; as philoso- 
phy converses in more appropriated and abstracted terms ; and 
thus, by degrees, eradicates the abundance of metaphor, which 
is used in the more early ages of societv. Otherwise, though 
the Greek compound words have more vowels, in proportion 
to their consonants, than the English ones, yet the modes of 
compounding them are less general, as may be seen by variety 
of instances given in the preface of the translators, prefixed to 
the System of Vegetables by the Lichfield Society ; which 
happv property of our own language rendered that translation 
of Linnaeus as expressive and as concise, perhaps more so, than 
the original. 

And, in one respect, I believe the English language serves 
the purpose of poetry better than the ancient ones ; I mean in 
the greater ease of producing personifications ; for as our nouns 
have, in general,' no genders affixed to them in prose-compo- 
sitions, and in the habits of conversation, they become easily 
personified only by the addition of a masculine or feminine 
pronoun ; as, 

Tule Melancholy sits, and round far tlirowr, 
A death-like silence, and a dread repose. 

Pope's 

And, secondly, as most of our nouns have the article a or the 
prefixed to them in prose-writing and in conversation, they, in 



INTERLUDE III. 99 

general, become personified even by the omission of these arti- 
cles ; as in the bold figure of Shipwreck in Miss Seward's 
Elegy- on Capt. Cook: 

But round the steepy rocks and dangerous strand 
Rolls the white surf, and Shipwreck guards the land. 

Add to this, that if the verses in our heroic poetry be shorter 
than those of the ancients, our words likewise are shorter; 
and, in respect to their measure or time, which has erroneously 
been called melody and harmony, I doubt, from what has been 
said above, whether we are so much inferior as is generally 
believed ; since many passages, which have been stolen from 
ancient poets, have been translated into our language without 
losing any thing of the beauty of the versification. The fol- 
lowing line, translated from Juvenal by Dr. Johnson, is mud} 
superior to the original : 

Slow rises Worth by Poverty depress'd. 
The original is as follows : 

Difficile emergunt, quorum virtut^bus o,bstat 
Res angusta domi. 

B. I am glad to hear you acknowledge the thefts of the 
modern poets from the ancient ones, whose works, I suppose, 
have been reckoned lawful plunder in all ages. But have not 
you bornnved epithets, phrases, and even half a line occasion- 
all}', from modern poets ? 

P. It may be difficult to mark the exact boundary of what 
should be termed plagiarism : where the sentiment and expres- 
sion are both borrowed without due acknowledgment, there 
can be no doubt ; — single words, on the contrary, taken from 
other authors, cannot convict a writer of plagiarism : they are 
lawful game, wild by nature, the property of all who can cap- 
ture them ; — and, perhaps, a few common flowers of speech 
may be gathered, as we pass over our neighbour's enclosure, 
without stigmatizing us with the title of thieves ; but we must 
not, therefore, plunder his cultivated fruit. 



100 INTERLUDE IIL 

The four lines at the end of the plant Upas are imitated from 
Dr. Young s Night Thoughts. The line in the episode adjoined 
to Cassia, " The salt tears mingling with the milk he sips," is 
from an interesting and humane passage in Langhorne's Justice 
of Peace. There are probably many others, which, if I could 
recollect them, should here be acknowledged. As it is, like 
exotic plants, their mixture with the native ones, I hope, adds 
beauty to my Botanic Garden: and such as it is, Mr. Bookseller . 
I now leave it to you to desire the Ladies and Gentlemen to 
walk in; but, please to apprize them, that, like the spectators 
at an unskilful exhibition in some village barn, I hope they will 
make Good-humour one of their party; and thus theirselve^ 
supply the defects of the representation. 



BOTANIC GARDEN. 



LOVES OF THE PLANTS 



CANTO IV. 



Nc 



i OW the broad Sun his golden orb unshrouds, 
Flames in the west, and paints the parted clouds ; 
O'er heaven's wide arch refracted lustres flow, 
And bend in air the many-colour'd bow.— • 
—The tuneful Goddess on the glowing sky § 

Fix'd in mute ecstacy her glistening eye ; 
And then her lute to sweeter tones she strung, 
And swell'd with softer chords the Paphian song ; 
Long aisles of Oaks return'd the silver sound, 
And amorous Echoes talk'd along the ground ; %Q 

Pleased Lichfield listen'd from her sacred bowers, 
Bow'd her tall groves, and shook her stately towers. 

" Nymph ! not for thee the radiant day returns, 
Nymph ! not for thee the golden solstice burns, 
Refulgent Cerea ! — at the dusky hour 15 

f5he seeks with pensive step the mountain bower, 



Pleased Lichfield. 1. 11. The scenery described at the beginning of the 
first part, or Economy of Vegetation, is taken from a botanic garden about 
a mile from Lichfield. 

Cerea. 1. 15. Cactus grandiflorus, or Cereus. Twenty males, one female. 
This flower is ^ native of Jamaica and Veracruz. It expands a most ex- 
quisitely beautiful corol, and emits a most fragrant odour for a fevv hours in 
the night, and then closes to open no more- The flower is nearly a foot in 
diameter ; the inside of the calyx of a splendid yellow, and the numerous 
petals of a pure white : it begins to open about seven or eight o'clock in the 
evening, and closes before sun-rise in the morning. Martyn's Letters, p. 
294. The Cistus labdaniferus, and many other flowers, lose their petals 
after having been a few hours expanded in the day-time ; for in these plants 
the stigma is sjaon impregnated by ths numerous aethers : in ruany flower: of 



102 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part II. 

Bright as the blush of rising morn, and warms 

The dull cold eye of midnight with her charms. 

There to the skies she lifts her pencil'd brows, 

Opes her fair lips, and breathes her virgin vows ; 20 

Eyes the white zenith ; counts the suns that roll 

Their distant fires, and blaze around the Pole ; 

Or marks where Jove directs his glittering car 

O'er heaven's blue vault,-~herself a brighter star. 

— There as soft zephyrs sweep with pausing airs 25 

Thy snowy neck, and part thy shadowy hairs, 

Sweet maid of night! to Cynthia's sober beams 

Glows thy warm cheek, thy polish'd bosom gleams. 

In crowds around thee gaze the admiring swains, 

And guard in silence the enchanted plains ; 30 

Drop the still tear, or breathe the impassion'd sigh, 

And drink inebriate rapture from thine eye. 

Thus, when old Needwood's hoary scenes the Night 

Paints with blue shadow, and with milky light ; 

Where Mundy pour'd the listening nymphs among, 35 

Loud to the echoing vales his parting song ; 

With measured step the Fairy Sovereign treads, 

Shakes her high plume, and glitters o'er the meads ; 

Round each green holly leads her sportive train, 

And little footsteps mark the circled plain ; 4« 

Each haunted rill with silver voices rings, 

And Night's sweet bird in livelier accents sings. 

the Cistns labdaniferus I observed two or three of the stamens were perpe- 
tually bent into contact with the pistil. 

The Nyctanthes, called Arabian Jasmine, is another flower which ex- 
pands a beautiful corol, and gives out a most delicate perfume during the 
night, and not in the day, in its native country ; whence its name. Botanical 
philosophers have not yet explained this wonderful property ; perhaps the 
plant sleeps during the day, as.some animals do; and its odoriferous glands 
only emit their fragrance during the expansion of the petals; that is, during 
its waking hours ; the Geranium tnste has the same property of giving up 
its fragrance only in the night. The flowers of the Cucmbita lagenaria are 
said to close when the sun shines upon them. In our climate many flowers, 
as hag^pogon, and hibiscus, close their flowers before the hottest part of the 
da;, comes on; and the flowers of some species of cucubalus, and Silene, vis- 
cous campion, are closed all day; but when the sun leaves them they expand, 
and emit a very agreeable scent; whence such plants are termed noctitlora. 

Where Mundy. 1 3.5. Alluding to an unpublished poem by F. N. C. Mundy, 
Esq en his leaving Needwood-i'oiest. bee the passage in the notes at the 
end of this volume. 



Canto IV. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. ios 

" Ere the bright star, which leads the morning sky, 
Hangs o'er the blushing east his diamond eye, 
The chaste Tropjeo leaves her secret bed, 45 

A saint -like glory trembles round her head ; 
Eight watchful swains, along the lawns of night. 
With amorous steps pursue the virgin light ; 
O'er her fair form the electric lustre plays, 
And cold she moves amid the lambent blaze. 50 

So shines the glow-flv, when the sun retires, 
And gems the night-air with phosphoric fires : 
Thus o'er the marsh aerial lights betray, 
And charm the unwary wanderer from his way. 
So when thy King, Assyria, fierce and proud, 55 

Three human victims to his idol vow'd ; 
Rear'd a vast pyre before the golden shrine 
Of sulphurous coal, and pitch- exuding pine ; — 

Tropixalum. 1. 45. Majus. Garden Nasturtion, or greater Indian cress, 
Eight males, one female. Miss E. C Linnaeus first observed the Tropaolum 
Majus to emit sparks or flashes in the mornings before sun-rise, during the 
months of June or July, and also during the twilight in the evening, but not 
after total darkness came on ; these singular scintillations were shown to her 
father and other philosophers ; and Mr. Wilcke, a celebrated electrician, be- 
lieved them to be electric. Lin. Spec. Plantar, p. 490. Swedish Acts for 
the year 1762. Pulteney's View of Linnaeus, p. 220. Nor is tins more 
wonderful than that the electric eel and torpedo should give voluntary shocks of 
electricity ; and in this plant, perhaps, as in those animals, it may be a mode, 
of defence, by which it harasses or destroys the night-flying insects which in- 
fest it ; and probably it may emit the same sparks during the day, which 
must be then invisible. This curious subject deserves further investigation. 
See Dictamnu3. The ceasing to shine of this plant after twilight might in- 
duce one to conceive, that it absorbed and emitted light, like the Bolognian 
Phosphorus, or calcined oyster-shells, so well explained by Mr. B. Wilson, 
and by T. B. Beccari. Exper. on Phosphori, by B. Wilson. Dodsley. The 
light of the evening, at the same distance from noon, is much greater, as I 
have repeatedly observed, than the light of the morning: this is owing, 1" 
suppose, to the phosphorescent quality of almost all bodies, in a greater or 
less degree, which thus absorb light during the sun-shine, and continue to 
emit it again for some time afterwards, though not in such quantity as to pro- 
duce apparent scintillations. The nectary of this plant grows from what is 
supposed to be the calyx; but this supposed calyx is coloured; and, perhaps, 
from this circumstance of its bearing the nectary, should rather be esteemed 
a part of the corol. See an additional note at the end of the poem. 

So shines the glmu-Jly. 1. 51. In Jamaica, in some seasons of the year, the 
fire-flies are seen in the evenings in great abundance. When they settle on 
the ground, the bull-frog greedily devours them ; which seems to have given 
origin to a curious, though cruel, method of destroying these animals: if red- 
hot pieces of charcoal be thrown towards them in the dusk of the evening, 
they leap at them, and, hastily swallowing them, are burnt to death. 



104 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part II, 

— Loud roar the flames, the iron nostrils breathe, 

And the huge bellows pant and heave beneath j 6& 

Bright and more bright the blazing deluge flows* 

And, white with sevenfold heat, the furnace glows. 

And now the Monarch fix'd with dread surprise 

Deep in the burning vault his dazzled eyes. 

"• Lo ! three unbound amid the frightful glare, 63 

" UnscorclVd their sandals, and unsinged their hair ! 

" And now a fourth with seraph-beautv bright 

*' Descends, accosts them, and outshines the light ! 

c< Fierce flames innocuous, as they step, retire ! 

a And slow they move amid a world of fire !" 70 

He spoke, — to Heaven his arms repentant spread, 

And, kneeling, bow'd his gem-incircled head. 

" Two Sister-Nymphs, the fair Avenas, lead 
Their fleecy squadrons on the lawns of Tweed ; 
Pass with light step his wave-worn banks along, 75 

And wake his Echoes with their silver tongue ; 
Or touch the reed, as gentle Love inspires, 
In notes accordant to their chaste desires* 
I. 
" Sweet Echo ! sleeps thy vocal shell, 
u Where this high arch o'erhangs the dell ; 8(5 



Avena. 1. 73. Oat. The numerous families of grasses have all three males, 
and two females, except Anthoxanthum, which gives the grateful smell to 
hay, and has but two males. The herbs of this order of vegetables support 
the countless tribes of graminivorous animals. The seeds of the smaller kinds 
of grasses, as of aira, poa, briza, stipa, &c. are the sustenance of many 
sorts of birds. The seeds of the large grasses, as of wheat, barlev, rye, 
oats, supply food to the human species. 

It seems to have required mure ingenuity to think of feeding nations of 
mankind with so small a seed, than with the potatoe of Mexico, or the bread- 
fruit of the southern islands; hence Cere.-., in Egypt, which was the birth- 
place of our European arts, was deservedly celebrated amongst their divinities, 
us well as Osyris, Who invented the Plough. 

Mr. Wahlborn observes, that as wheat, rye, and many of the grasses, and 
plantain, lift up their anthers or long filaments, and thus expose the enclosed 
fecundating dust to be washed away by the rains, a scarcity of corn is pro- 
duced by wet summers ; hence the necessity of a careful choice of seed-wheat, 
as that which had not received the dust of the anthers will not grow, though 
it ma; appear well to the eye. The straw of the oat stems to have been 
the first musical instrument, invented during tin- pastoral ages of the world, 
before the discovery of metals. See note on t 



Canto IV. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 105 

w While Tweed with sun-reflecting streams 
" Chequers thy rocks with dancing beams ?— 

II. 
" Here may no clamours harsh intrude, 
" No brawling hound or clarion rude ; 
M Here no fell beast of midnight prowl, &$ 

" And teach thy tortured cliffs to howl ! 

III. 
" Be thine to pour these vales along 
u Some artless Shepherd's evening song j 
" While Night's sweet bird, from yon high spray 
" Responsive, listens to his lay. 90 

IV. 
" And if like me some love-lorn maid 
" Should sing her sorrows to thy shade, 
" Oh sooth her breast, ye rocks around ! 
u With softest sympathy of sound." 

From ozier bowers the brooding Halcyons peep, 95 

The Swans pursuing cleave the glassy deep, 

On hovering wings the wondering Reed-larks play* 

And silent Bitterns listen to the lay.— 

Three shepherd-swains beneath the beechen shades 

Twine rival garlands for the tuneful maids ; 100 

On each smooth bark the mystic love-knot frame^ 

Or on white sands inscribe the favour'd name* 

Green swells the beech, the widening knots improve, 

So spread the tender growths of living love; 

Wave follows wave, the letter'd lines decay, 105 

So Love's soft forms uncultured melt away. 

" From Time's remotest dawn where China brings 
In proud succession all her Patriot-Kings ; 
O'er desert-sands, deep gulphs, and hills sublime, 
Extends her massy wall from clime to clime ; 11Q 

With bells and dragons crests her Pagod-bowers, 
Her silken palaces and porcelain towers ; 
With long canals a thousand nations laves ; 
Plants all her wilds, and peoples all her waves j 

Part II. O 



106 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part II. 

Slow (reads fair Cannabis the breezy strand, 115 

The distaff streams dishevell'd in her hand ; 

Now to the left her ivory neck inclines, 

And leads in Paphian curves its azure lines ; 

Dark waves the fringed lid, the warm cheek glows, 

And the fair ear the parting locks disclose ; 120 

Now to the right with airy sweep she bends, 

Quick join the threads, the dancing spole depends. 

— Five Swains attracted guard the Nymph, by turns 

Her grace enchants them, and her beauty burns ; 

To each she bows with sweet assuasive smile, 12' 

Hears his soft vows, and turns her spole the while. 

" So when with light and shade, concordant strife ! 
Stern Clotho weaves the chequer'd thread of life ; 
Hour after hour the growing line extends, 
The cradle and the coffin bound its ends ; 130 

Soft cords of silk the whirling spoles reveal, 
If smiling Fortune turn the giddy wheel ; 
But if sweet Love with babv-fingers twines, 
And wets with dewy lips the lengthening lines, 
Skein after skein celestial tints unfold, 135 

And all the silken tissue shines with gold. 

" Warm with sweet blushes bright Galantha glows, 
And prints with frolic step the melting snows : 

Caimabis. 1. 115. Chinese Hemp. Two houses. Five males. A new 
species of hemp, of which an account is given by K. Fitzgerald, Esq. in a 
letter to Sir Joseph Banks, and which is believed to be much superior to the 
hemp of other countries. A few seeds of this plant were sown in England 
on the 4th of June, and grew to fourteen feet seven inches in height by the 
middle of October : they were nearly seven inches in circumference, and bore 
many lateral- branches, and produced very white and tough fibres. At some 
pans of the time these plants grew nearly eleven inches in a week. Phil, 
Trans, vol. lxxii. p. 46. 

Paphian curves 1. 118. In his ingenious work, entitled, The Analysis of 
Beamy, Mr. Hogarth believes that the triangular glass, which wa. dedicated 
to Venus, in her temple at Paphos, contained in it a line bending spirally 
round a cone, with a certain degree of curvature, and that this pyramids! 
outline and serpentine curve constitute the principles of Grace ami Heauty. 

Gqtantbus. 1. 137. Nivalis. Snow-drop. Six males, one female. The 
first (lower that appears after the winter solstice. See Stillingileet's Calcu- 
dar of Flora. 

Some snow-drop-roots, taken up in winter, and boiled, had the insipid 



Canto IV. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 

O'er silent floods, white hills, and glittering meads, 
Six rival swains the playful beauty leads, 
Chides with her dulcet voice the tardy Spring, 
Bids slumbering Zephyr stretch his folded wing, 
Wakes the hoarse Cuckoo in his gloomy cave, 
And calls the wondering Dormouse from his grave, 
Bids the mute Redbreast cheer the budding grove, 
And plaintive Ringdove tune her notes to love. 

" Spring ! with thy own sweet smile and tuneful tongue, 
Delighted Bellis calls her infant throng, 
Each on his reed astride, the Cherub-train 
Watch her kind looks, and circle o'er the plain ; 
Now with young wonder touch the sliding snail, 
Admire his eye-tipp'd horns, and painted mail ; 
Chase with quick step and eager arms outspread, 
The pausing Butterfly from mead to mead ; 
Or twine green oziers with the fragrant Gale, 
The azure harebel, and the primrose pale, 



mucilaginous tase of the Orchis, and, if cured in the same manner, would 
probably make as good salep. The roots of the Hyacinth, I am informed, 
are equally insipid, and might be used as an article of food. Gmelin, in his 
History of Siberia, says the Martagon Lily makes a part of the food of that 
country, which is of the same natural order as the snow-drop. Some roots 
of Crocus, which I boiled, had a disagreeable flavour. 

The difficulty of raising the Orchis from seed has, perhaps, been a prin- 
cipal reason of its not being cultivated in this country as an article of food. 
It is affirmed, by one of the Linnsan School, in the Amoenit. Academ. 
that the seeds of Orchis will ripen, if you destroy the new bulb ; and that 
Lily of the Valley, Convallaria, will produce many more seeds, and ripen 
them, if the roots be crowded in a garden pot, so as to prevent them from 
producing many bulbs, vol. vi. p. 120. It is probable either of these methods 
may succeed with these and other bulbous-rooted plants, as snow-drops, and 
might render their cultivation profitable in this climate. The root of the 
asphodelus ramosus, branchy asphodel, is used to feed swine in France ; the 
starch is obtained from the alstromeria licta. Merr.oires d'Agricult. 

Bellis prolifera. I. 148. Hen and chicken Daisy. In this beautiful mon- 
ster not only the impletion, or doubling of the petals, takes place, as described 
in the note on Alcea, but a numerous circlet of less flowers on peduncles, 
or foot-stalks, rise from the sides of the calx, and surround the proliferous 
parent. The same occurs in Calendula, marigold; in Heracium, hawkweed; 
and in Scabiosa, scabious. Phil- Botan. p. 82. 

The fragrant Gale. 1. 155. The buds of the Myrica Gale possess an agree- 
able aromatic fragrance, and might be worth attending to as an article of 
the Materia Medica. Mr. Sparman suspects, that the green wax-like sub- 
stance, with which, at certain times of the year, the berries of the Myrica 
cerifera, or candle-berry Myrtle, are covered, ajre deposited there by insects 



108 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part II. 

Join hand in hand, and in procession gay 

Adorn with votive wreathes the shrine of May. 

—So moves the Goddess to the Idalian groves, 

And leads her gold-hair'd family of Loves. 160 

These, from the flaming furnace, strong and bold, 

Pour the red steel in many a sandy mould ; 

On tinkling anvils (with Vulcanian art) 

Turn with hot tongs, and forge the dreadful dart ; 

The barbed head on whirling jaspers grind, 165 

And dip the point in poison for the mind ; 

Each polish'd shaft with snow-white plumage wing, 

Or strain the bow reluctant to its string. 

Those on light pinion twine with busy hands, 

Or stretch from bough to bough the flower}- bands ; 1 70 

Scare the dark beetle, as he wheels on high, 

Or catch in silken nets the gilded fly ; 

Call the young Zephyrs to their fragrant bowers, 

And stay with kisses sweet the Vernal Hours. 

" Where, as proud Masson rises rude and bleak, 175 

And with mishapen turrets crests the Peak, 
Old Madock gapes with marble jaws, beneath, 
And o'er scar'd Derwent bends his flint}' teeth ; 
Deep in wide caves below the dangerous soil 
Blue sulphurs flame, imprison'd waters boil, ISC- 



It is used by the inhabitants for making candles, which, he says, burn rather 
better than those made of tallow. Voyage to the Cape, vol. i. p. o4o. Da 
Halde gives an account of a white wax, made by small insects, round the 
branches of a tree in China, in great quantity, which is there collected for 
medical and economical purposes. The tree is called Tong-tsin. Description 
of China, vol. i. p. 230. 

Deep in wide caves. 1. 179. The arguments which tend to show that the 
warm springs of this country are produced from steam raised by deep sub- 
terraneous tires, and afterwards condensed between the strata of the moun- 
tains, appear to me much more conclusive than the idea of their being warmed 
by chemical combinations near the surface of the earth ; for, tirst, their heat 
has kept accurately the 6ame, perhaps, for many centuries, certainly as long 
as we have been possessed of good thermometers ; which cannot be wdl ex- 
plained, without supposing that they are first in a boiling state. For, as the 
neat of boiling water is 212, and that of the internal parrs of the earth 48. 
it is easy to understand, that the steam raised from boiling water, after being 
condensed in some mountain, and passing from thence through a certain 
space of the cold earth, must be cooled always to a given degree ; and, it i: 



Canto IV. LOVES OF TH E PLANTS. 109 

Impetuous steams in spiral columns rise 

Through rifted rocks, impatient for the skies; 

Or o'er bright seas of bubbling lavas blow, 

As heave and toss the billowy fires below : 

Condensed on high, in wandering rills they glide 185^ 

From Masson's dome, and burst his sparry side ; 

Round his grey towers, and doAvn his fringed walls, 

From cliff to cliff, the liquid treasure falls ; 

In beds of stalactite, bright ores among, 

O'er corols, shells, and crystals, winds along ; 190 

Crusts the green mosses, and the tangled wood, 

And sparkling plunges to its parent flood. 

—O'er the warm wave a smiling youth presides, 

Attunes its murmurs, its meanders guides, 

(The blooming Fucus) in her sparry coves 195 

To amorous Echo sings his secret loves, 

Bathes his fair forehead in the misty stream, 

And with sweet breath perfumes the rising steam, 

— So, erst, an Angel o'er Bethesda's springs, 

Each morn descending, shook his dewy wings ; 200 



probable, the distance from the exit of the spring to the place where the 
Steam is condensed, might be guessed by the degree of its warmth. 

2. In the dry summer of 1780, when all other springs were either dry or 
much diminished, those of Buxton ana Matlock (as I was well informed on 
the spot) had suffered no diminution , which proves that the sources of these 
warm springs are at great depths below the surface of the earth. 

3. There are numerous perpendicular fissures in the rocks of Derbyshire, 
in which the ores of lead and copper are found, and which pass to unknown 
depths, and might thence aiford a passage to steam from great subterraneous 
lires. 

4. If these waters were heated by the decomposition of pyrites, there 
would be some chalybeate taste or sulphureous smell in them. See note i» 
Part I. on the existence of central fires. 

Fucus. 1. 195. Clandestine marriage. A species of Fucus, or of Conferva, 
soon appears in all basons which contain water. Dr. Priestley found, that 
great quantities of pure dephlogisticated air were given up in water at the 
points of this vegetable, particularly in the sunshine, and that hence it con- 
tributed to preserve the water in reservoirs from becoming putrid. The mi- 
nute divisions of the leaves of subaquatic plants, as mentioned in the note on 
Trapa, and of the gills of fish, seem to serve another purpose besides that of 
increasing their surface, which has not, I believe, been attended to, and that 
is, to facilitate the separation of the air, which is mechanically mixed, or 
chemically dissolved in water, by their points or edges : this appears on im- 
mersing a dry hairy leaf in water fresh from a pump ; innumerable globules,, 
like quicksilver, appear on almost every point; fur the extremities of these 
points attract the particles of water less forcibly than those particles attract 



110 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part II. 

And as his bright translucent form he laves, 
Salubrious powers enrich the troubled waves. 

" Amphibious Nymph, from Nile's prolific bed 
Emerging Trapa lifts her pearly head ; 

each other; hence the contained air, whose elasticity was but just balanced 
by the attractive power of the surrounding particles of water to each other, 
finds, at the point of each fibre, a place where the resistance to its expansion 
is less ; and, in consequence, it there expands, and becomes a bubble of air. 
Jt is easy to foresee that the rays of the sunshine, by being refracted, and, in 
part, reflected by the two surfaces of these minute air-bubbles, must impart 
to them much more heat than to the transparent water, and thus facilitate 
their ascent by further expanding them; and that the points of vegetables 
attract the particles of water less than they attract each other, is seen by the 
spherical form of dew-drops on the points of grass. See note on Vegetable 
Respiration, in Part I. 

Trapa. I. 204 Four males, one female. The lower leaves of this plant 
grow under water, and are divided into minute capillary ramifications ; while 
the upper leaves are broad and round, and have air-bladders in their foot- 
stalk to support them above the surface of the water. As the aerial leaves of 
vegetables do the office of lungs, by exposing a large surface of vessels, with 
their contained fluids, to the influence of the air; so these aquatic leaves an- 
swer a similar purpose, like the gills of fish ; and perhaps gain from water, 
or give to it a similar material. As the material thus necessary to life seems 
to abound more in air than in water, the subaquatic leaves of this plant, and 
of sisymbrium, cenanthe, ranunculus aquatilis, water crowfoot, and some others, 
are cut into fine divisions to increase the surface ; whilst those above water 
are undivided. So the plants on high mountains have their upper leaves 
wore divided, as pimpinella, petroselinum, and others, because here the air 
is thinner, and thence a larger surface of contact is required. The stream of 
•water also passes but once along the gills of fish, as it is sconer deprived of 
its virtue; whereas the air is both received and ejected by the action of the 
lungs of land animals. The whale seems to be an exception to the above, 
as he receives water and spouts it out again from an organ, which I suppose 
to be a respiratory one; and probably the lamprey, so frequent in the month 
of April both in the Severn and Derwent, inspires and expires water on the 
seven holes on each side of the neck, which thus perform the office of the 
gills of other fish. As spring water is nearly of the same degree of heat 
in all climates, the aquatic plants, which grow in rills or fountains, are found 
equally in the torrid, temperate, and frigid zones, as water-cress, water-parsnip, 
ranunculus, and many others. 

In warmer climates the watery grounds are usefully cultivated, as with rice; 
and the roots of some aquatic plants are said to have supplied food, as the 
ancient Lotus in Egypt, which some have supposed to be the Nymphxa. — 
In Siberia the roots of the Butomus, or flowering rush, are eaten, which is 
well worth further inquiry, as they grow spontaneously in our ditches and 
rivers, which at present produce no esculent vegetables; and might thence 
become an article of useful cultivation. Herodotus affirms, that the Egyptian 
Lotus grows in the Nile, and resembles a Lily. That the natives dry it in 
the sun, and take the pulp out of it, which grows like the head of a poppy., 
and ba^e it for bread. Euterpe. Many grit-stones and coals, which 1 have 
scen, seem to bear an impression of the roots ol' the Nvmphxa, which art? 
cft*cn three or lour inches thick, especially the white-flowered one. 



Canto IV. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 

Fair glows her virgin cheek and modest breast, 

A panoply of scales deforms the rest ; 

Her quivering f>ns and panting gills she hides, 

But spreads her silver arms upon the tides ; 

Slow as she sails, her ivory neck she laves, 

And shakes her golden tresses o'er the waves. 

Charm'd round the N}-mph, in circling gambols glide 

Four Nereid-forms, or shoot along the tide; 

Now all as one they rise Avith frolic spring, 

And beat the wondering air on humid wing ; 

Now all descending plunge beneath the main, 

And lash the foam with undulating train ; 

Above, below, they wheel, retreat, advance, 

Iri air and ocean weave the mazy dance ; 

Bow their quick heads, and point their diamond eyes, 

And twinkle to the sun with ever-changing dyes. 

" Where Andes, crested with volcanic beams, 
Sheds a long line of light on Plata's streams ; 
Opes all his springs, unlocks his golden caves, ' 
And feeds and freights the immeasurable waves ; 
Delighted Ocyma at twilight hours 
Calls her light car, and leaves the sultry bowers ; — 



Ocymum salinum. 1. 225. Saline Basil. Class Two Powers. The Abbe 
Molina, in his History of Chili, translated from the Italian by the Abbe 
Grewvel, mentions a species of Basil, which he calls Ocymum salimim: he 
says it resembles the common basil, except that the stalk is round and jointed ; 
and that though it grows sixty miles from the sea, yet every morning it is 
covered with saline globules, which are hard and splendid, appearing at a 
distance like dew; and that each plant furnishes about half an ounce of fine 
salt every day, which the peasants collect, and use as common salt, but es- 
teem it superior in flavour. 

As an article of diet, salt seems to act simply as a stimulus, not contain- 
ing any nourishment, and is the only fossil substance which the caprice of 
mankind has yet taken into their stomachs along with their food ; and, like 
all other unnatural stimuli, is not necessary to people in health, and contri- 
butes to weaken our system, though it may be useful as a medicine. It seems 
to be the immediate cause of the sea-scurvy, as those patients quickly reco- 
ver by the use of fresh provisions ; and is, probably, a remote cause of scro- 
phnla (which consists in the want of irritability in the absorbent vessels), 
and is, therefore, serviceable to these patients, as wine is necessary to those 
whose stomachs have been weakened by its use. The universality of the 
use of salt with our food, and in our cookery, has rendered it difficult to 
prove the truth of these observations. I suspect that flesh-meat, cut into thin 
slices, either raw or boiled., might be prescryed in coarse sugar or treacle * 



112 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part II 

Love's rising rav, and Youth's seductive dye, 

Bloom'd on her cheek, and brighten'd in her eye ; 

Chaste, pure, and white, a zone of silver graced 

Her tender breast, as white, as pure, as chaste ; — 230 

By four fond swains in playful circles drawn, 

On glowing wheels she tracks the moon-bright lawn, 

Mounts the rude cliff, unveils her blushing charms, 

And calls the panting zephyrs to her arms. 

Emerged from ocean springs the vaporous air, 

Bathes her light limbs, uncurls her amber hair, 

Incrusts her beamy form with films saline, 

And Beauty blazes through the crystal shrine. — 

So with pellucid studs the ice-flower gems 

Her rimy foliage, and her candied stems. 240 

So from his glassy horns, and pearly eyes, 

The diamond-beetle darts a thousand dyes ; 

Mounts with enamel'd wings the vesper gale, 

And wheeling shines in adamantine mail. 

" Thus when loud thunders o'er Gomorrah burst, 24*f> 

And heaving earthquakes shook his realms accurst, 
An Angel-guest led forth the trembling Fair 
With shadowy hand, and warn'd the guiltless pair ; 
" Haste from these lands of sin, ye Righteous ! flv, 
" Speed the quick step, nor turn the lingering eye !" — 250 
— Such the command, as fabling Bards recite, 
When Orpheus charm'd the grisly King of Night ; 
Sooth'd the pale phantoms with his plaintive lay, 
And led the fair Assurgent into day. — 

Wide yawn'd the earth, the fiery tempest flash'd, 255 

And towns and towers in one vast ruin crash'd ; — 
Onward they move, — loud horror roars behind, 
And shrieks of Anguish bellow in the wind. 

and thus a very nourishing and salutary diet might be presented to our 
men. See note on Salt-rocks, in Parti. Canto II. If" a person, unaccus- 
tomed to much salt, should cat a couple of red herrings, his insensible per- 
spiration will be so much increased by the stimulus of the salt, that he will 
Hnd it necessary, in about two hours, to drink a quart of water: the effect: 
of a continued use of salt in weakening the action of the lymphatic system 
may hence he deduced. 

Ice : fl,. Meseir.bvyanUiemum crystal! im-T. 



Canto IV. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. lis 

With many a sob, amid a thousand fears, 

The beauteous wanderer pours her gushing tears ; 260 

Each soft connection rends her troubled breast, 

— She turns, unconscious of the stern behest !-— 

" I faint ! — I fall ! — ah, me ! — sensations chill 

" Shoot through my bones, my shuddering bosom thrill ! 

" I freeze ! I freeze ! just Heaven regards my fault, 265 

" Numbs my cold limbs, and hardens into salt !— 

" Not yet, not yet, your dying love resign ! — 

" This last, last kiss receive ! — no longer thine !" — 

She said, and ceased, — her stiffenM form he press'd, 

And strain'd the briny column to his breast ; 2*0 

Printed with quivering lips the lifeless snow, 

And wept, and gazed the monument of woe. 

So when iEneas through the flames of Troy 

Bore his pale sire, and led his lovely boy, 

With loitering step the fair Creusa stay'd, 275 

And Death involved her in eternal shade. — 

— Oft the lone Pilgrim, that his road forsakes, 

Marks the wide ruins, and the sulphur'd lakes j 

On mouldering piles amid asphaltic mud 

Hears the hoarse bittern, where Gomorrah stood ; 280 

Recals the unhappy Pair with lifted eye, 

Leans on the crystal tomb, and breathes the silent sigh. 

" With net-wove sash and glittering gorget dress'd, 
And scarlet robe lapell'd upon her breast, 
Stern Ara frowns, the measured march assumes, 285 

Trails her long lance, and nods her shadowy plumes ; 

Arum. 1. 285. Cuckow-point, of the class Gynandria, or masculine ladies. 
The pistil, or female part of the flower, rises like a club, is covered above, or 
clothed, as it were, by the anthers or males ; and some of the species have 
a large scarlet blotch in the middle of every leaf. 

The singular and wonderful structure of this flower has occasioned many 
disputes amongst botanists. See Tournef. Malpig. Dillen. Riven. &c. The 
receptacle is enlarged into a naked club, with the germs at its base; the sta- 
mens are affixed to the receptacle amidst the germs (a natural prodigy), and 
thus do not need the assistance of elevating filaments : hence the flower 
may be said to be inverted. Families of Plants, translated from LinnKiis, 
p. 618. 

The spadix of this plant is frequently quite white, or coloured, and the 
leaves liable to be streaked with white, and to have black or scarlet blotches 
on them. As the plant has no corol or blossom, it is probable the coloured 

Part II. P 



114 v. VIC GARDEN. PAp II. 

While Love's soft beams illume her treacherous eyes, 

And Beauty lightens through the thin disguise. 

So erst, when Hercules, untamed by toil, 

Own'd the soft power of Dejanira's smile ; — 29^ 

His lion-spoils the laughing Fair demands, 

And gives the distaff to his awkward hands ; 

O'er her white neck the bristly mane she throws, 

And binds the gaping whiskers on her brows ; 

Plaits round her slender waist the shaggy vest, 

And clasps the velvet paws across her breast. 

Next with soft hands the knotted club she rears, 

Heaves up from earth, and on her shoulder bears. 

Onward with loftier step the Beauty treads, 

And trails the brinded ermine o'er the meads ; 300 

Wolves, bears, and pards, forsake the affrighted groves, 

And grinning Satyrs tremble, as she moves. 

" Caryo\s sweet smile Diaxthus proud admires. 
And gazing burns with unallow'd desires ; 

juices in these parrs of the sheath or leaves may serve the same purpose as the 
coloured juices in the petals of other Mowers ; from which I suppose the ho- 
ney to be prepared. See note on Hdleborus. I am informed that those tulip- 
roots which have a red cuticle produce red flowers. See Rubia. 

When the petals of the tulip become striped with many colours, the plant 
loses almost half of" its height; and the method of making them thus break 
into colours, is by transplanting them into a meagre or sandy soil, after they 
have previously -yoyc-J a riclxr soil : hence it appears, that the plant is weak- 
ened when the flower becomes variegated. See note on Anemone. For the 
acquired habit:; of vegetables, see Tulipa, Orchis. 

The roots of the Arum are scratched up, and eaten by thrushes in sevafe 
snowy seasons. White's Hist, of Selbourn, p. 43. 

Dianthus. 1. 303. Superbus. Proud Pink. There is a kind of pink, 
called Fairchild's mule, which is here supposed to be produced between a 
Dianthus superbus and the Caryophyllus, Clove. The Dianthus superbus 
emits a most fragrant odour, particularly at night. Vegetable mules supply 
an irrefragable argument in favour of the sexual system of botany. The 
are said to be numerous; and, like the mules of the animal kingdom, not 
always to continue their species by seed. There is an account of a curious 
»nule from the Antirrhinum linaria, Toad-tlax, in the Amcerrit. Academ. vol. 
i- No. 3. and many hybrid plants described in No. 32. The Urtica alienate is 
an evergreen plant, which appears to lie a nettle from the male flowers, and 
a Pellitofy (Parieraria) from the female ones and the fruit ; and is hence be- 
tween both. Murray, Syst. Veg. Amongst the English indigenous plants, 
the veronic t hybrida, mul • Speedwel, is supposed t • d from the 

officinal one and the spiked one. And tn< Sibthorpia Europssa to have for 
ita parents the golden saxifrage and marsh pennywort. Pulteney's View oJ 
'-• ',53. Mr, Graberg, M 



Cam o IV. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 

With sighs and sorrows her compassion moves, 
And wins the damsel to illicit loves. 
The Monster-offspring heirs the father's pride, 
Mask'd in the damask beauties of the bride. 
So, when the Nightingale in eastern bowers 
On quivering pinion woos the Queen of Flowers ; 
Inhales her fragrance, as he hangs in aii , 
And melts with melody the blushing fair ; 
Half-rose, half-bird, a beauteous Monster springs, 
Waves his thin leaves, and claps his glossy wings ; 
Long horrent thorns his mossy legs surround, 
And tendril-talons root him to the ground ; 
Green films of rind his wrinkled neck overspread, 
And crimson petals crest his curled head ; 
Soft-warbling beaks in each bright blossom move, 
And vocal Rosebuds thrill the enchanted grove !— 
Admiring Evening stays her beamy star, 
And still Night listens from his ebon car ; 
While on white wings descending Houries throng, 
And drink the floods of odour and of song. 

" When from his golden urn the Solstice pours 
O'er Afric's sable sons the sultry hours ; 
When not a gale flits o'er her tawny hills, 
Save where the dry Harmattan breathes and kills ; 



opinion, that the internal structure, or parts of fructification in mute plants, 
resemble the female parent ; but that the habit, or external structure, resembles 
the male parent. See treatises under the above names, in vol. vi. Amcenit. 
Academic. The mule produced from a horse and the ass, resembles the horse 
externally with his ears, mane, and tail, but with the nature or manners of 
an ass : but the Hinnus, or creature produced from a male ass and a mare, 
resembles the father externally in stature, ash-colour, and the black cross, but 
with the nature or manners of a horse. The breed from Spanish rams and 
Swedish ewes resembled the Spanish sheep in wool, stature, and external 
form, but was as hardy as the Swedish sheep; and the contrary of those 
-which were produced fiom Swedish rams and Spanish ewes. The offspring 
from the male goat of Angora and the Swedish female goat had long soft 
camel's hair ; but that from the male Swedish £,oat and the female one of 
Angora, had no improvement of their wool. An English ram. without 
horns, and a Swedish horned ewe, produced sheep without horns. Amcen. 
Acad, vol vi. p. 13. 

The dry Harmattan. 1.328. The Harmattan is a singular wind, blowing 
from the interior parts of Africa to the Atlantic ocean, sometimes for a few 
hours, sometimes for several days, without regular periods. It is always a*? 



116 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part II. 

When stretch'd in dust her gasping panthers lie, 

And writhM in fo any folds her serpents die j 330 

Indignant Atlas mourns his leafless woods, 

And Gambia trembles for his sinking floods ; 

Contagion stalks along the briny sand, 

And Ocean rolls his sickening shoals to land. 

■ — Fair Chunda smiles amid the burning waste, 335 

Her brow unturban'd, and her zone unbrae'd ; 

tended with a fog or haze, so dense as to render those objects invisible which 
are at the distance of a quarter of a mile: the sun appears through it only 
about noon, and then of a dilute red, and very minute particles subside from 
the misty air, so as to make the grass, and the skins of negroes, appear 
whitish. The extreme dryness which attends this wind or fog, without dews, 
withers, and quite dries, the leaves of vegetables ; and is said, by Dr. Lind, 
at some seasons, to be fatal and malignant to mankind; probably after much 
preceding wet, when it may become loaded with the exhalations from putrid 
marshes ; at other seasons it is said to check epidemic diseases, to cure fluxes, 
and to heal ulcers and cutaneous eruptions ; which is, probably, effected by 
its yielding no moisture to the mouths of the external absorbent vessels, by 
which the action of the other branches of the absorbent system is increased to 
supply (he defic ; ency. Account of the Harmattan, Philos. Trans, vol. Ixxi. 

The Reverend Mr. Sterling gives an account of a darkness for six or eight 
hours at Detroit, in America, on the 19th of October, 1762, in which thj 
sun appeared as red as blood, and thrice its usual size : some rain falling, co- 
vered white paper with dark drops, like sulphur or dirt, which burnt like wet 
gun-powder, and the air had a very sulphureous smell. He supposes this to 
have been emitted from some distant earthquake or volcano. Philos. Trans, 
vol. liii. p. 63. 

In many circumstances this wind seems much to resemble the dry fog 
which covered most parts of Europe, for many weeks, in the summer of 
1780, which has been supposed to have had a volcanic origin, as it succeeded 
the violent eruption of Mount Hecla, and its neighbourhood. From the sub- 
sidence of a white powder, it seems probable that the Harmattan has a simi- 
lar origin, from the unexplored mountains of Africa. Nor is it improbable, 
that the epidemic coughs, which occasionally traverse immense tracts of 
country, may be the products of volcanic eruptions ; nor impossible, that at 
some future time, contagious miasmata may be thus emitted from subterra- 
neous furnaces, in such abundance as to contaminate the whole atmosphere, 
and depopulate the earth ! 

His sickening shoals. 1. 334 Mr. Marsden relates, that in the island of 
Sumatra, during the November of 1775, the dry monsoons, or S. £. winds, 
continued so much longer than usual, that the large rivers became dry ; and 
prodigious quantities of sea-fish, dead and dying, were seen iloating for 
on the sea, and driven on the beach by the tides. This was supposes 
to have been caused by the great evaporation, and the deficiency of fresh- 
Water rivers having rendered the sea too sab for its inhabitants. The season 
then became so sickly as to destroy great numbers of people, both 
and natives. Philos. Trans, vol. Ixxi. p 

Chun-la. I. 335. Chnndali Borrutn is the name which the natives give to 
: it is the Hedysarum gyrans, or moving plant : its class is two 
brothcrhuods, ten males. Its leaves are continually hi spontaneous 




//<><///,;</?'///// (/yjy///.>. 



Canto IV. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 117 

Ten brother-youths -with light umbrellas shade, 

Or fan with busy hands the panting maid ; 

Loose wave her locks, disclosing as they break, 

The rising bosom and averted cheek ; 340 

Clasp'd round her ivory neck with studs of gold 

Flows her thin vest in many a gauzy fold ; 

O'er her light limbs the dim transparence plays, 

And the fair form, it seems to hide, betravs. 

" Cold from a thousand rocks, where Ganges leads 345 
The gushing waters to his sultry meads ; 
By moon-crown'd mosques with gay reflections glides, 
And vast pagodas trembling on his sides ; 
With sweet loquacity Nelumbo sails, 

Shouts to his shores, and parleys with his gales ; 350 

Invokes his echoes, as she moves along, 
And thrills his ripling surges with her song. 
— As round the Nymph her listening lovers play, 
And guard the beauty on her watery way ; 
Charm'd on the brink relenting tygers gaze, 355 

And pausing buffaloes forget to graze ; 

some rising and others falling; and others whirling circularly by twisting 
their stems. This spontaneous movement of the leaves, when the air is quite 
still and very warm, seems to be necessary to the plant, as perpetual respira- 
tion is to animal life. A more particular account, with a good print of the 
Hedysarum gyrans, is given by M. Broussonet, in a paper on vegetable mo- 
tions, in the Histoire de l'Academie des Sciences. Ann. 1784, p. 609. 

There are many other instances of spontaneous movements of the parts 
of vegetables. In the Marchantia polymorpha, some yellow wool proceeds 
from the flower-beating anthers, which moves spontaneously in the anther, 
while it drops its dust like atoms. Murray, Syst. Veg. See note on Collin- 
sonia, for other instances of vegetable spontaneity. Add to this, that as 
the sleep of animals consists in a suspension of voluntary motion, and as ve- 
getables are likewise subject to sleep, there is reason to conclude, that the va- 
rious actions of opening and closing their petals and foliage may be justly as- 
cribed to a voluntary power : for without the faculty of volition, sleep would 
not have been necessary to them. 

Nelumbo. 1. 349. Nymphasa Nelumbo. A beautiful rose-red flower on 
a receptacle as large as an artichoke. The capsule is perforated with holes 
at the top, and the seeds rattle in it. Perfect leaves are seen in the seeds 
before they germinate. Linnauis, who has enlisted all our senses into the 
service of botany, has observed this rattling of the Nelumbo; and mentions 
what he calls an electric murmur, like distant thunder, in hop-yards, when 
the wind blows, and asks the cause of it. We have one kind of peaicularis 
in our meadows, which has obtained the name of rattle-grass, from the rat- 
tling of its dry seed-vessels under our feet. 



118 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part II. 

Admiring elephants forsake their woods. 

Stretch their wide ears, and wade into the floods ; 

In silent herds the wondering sea-calves lave, 

Or nod their slimy forheads o'er the wave ; 360 

Poised on still wing attentive vultures sweep, 

And winking crocodiles are lull'd to sleep. 

" Where leads the northern Star his lucid train 
High o'er the snow-clad earth, and icy main, 
With milky light the white horizon streams, 365 

And to the moon each sparkling mountain gleams. — . 
Slow o'er the printed snows with silent walk 
Huge shaggv forms across the twilight stalk ; 
And ever and anon with hideous sound 

Burst the thick ribs of ice, and thunder round. — - 370 

There, as old Winter flaps his hoary wing, 
And lingering leaves his empire to the Spring, 
Pierced with quick shafts of silver-shooting light 
Fly in dark troops the dazzled imps of night. — 
*'■ Awake, my Love !" enamour'd Muschus cries, 07o 

" Stretch thy fair limbs, refulgent Maid ! arise ; 
*' Ope thy sweet eye-lids to the rising ray, 
f And hail with ruby lips returning day. 



Burnt the thick ribs of ice. 1. 370. The violent cracks of ice heard from 
the Glaciers, seem to be caused by some of the snow being melted in the 
middle of the day ; and the water thus produced running down into vallics of 
jce, and, congealing again in a few hours, ibices off, by its expansion, large 
precipices from the ice-mountains. 

Muschus. I. 375. Corallinus, or lichen rangiferinus. Coral-moss. Clan- 
destine marriage. This moss vegetates beneath the snow, where the degree 
of heat is always about 40; that is, in the middle, between the freezing point 
and the common heat of the earth; and is, for many month:; of the winter, 
the sole food of the rein-deer, who di^s furrows in the snow to rind it, and 
us the milk and flesh of this animal is almost the only sustenance which can 
be procured during the long winters of the higher latitudes, this moss ma\ be 
L,aij to support some millions of mankind. 

The quick vegetation that occurs on the solution of the snows in high la- 
titudes, appears very astonishing ; it seems to arise from two causes \ 1. The 
inuance of the approaching sun above the horizon ; -. The increased 
of plants which have been long exposed to the cold. See note on 
Anemone. 

All the water fowl on the lakes of Siberia are said, by Professor Gmelin, to 
i . -11 the commem 
tried in snOW. ACCOUM ci bibcria. 



Canto IV. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 

" Down the white hills dissolving torrents pour, 

" Green springs the turf, and purple blows the flower ; 

" His torpid wing the Rail exulting tries, 

" Mounts the soft gale, and wantons in the skies ; 

" Rise, let us mark how bloom the awaken'd groves, 

" And 'mid the banks of roses hide our loves." 

** Night's tinsel beaihs on smooth Lock-lomond dance, 
Impatient ^Ega views the bright expanse ; 
In vain her eyes the passing floods explore, 
Wave after wave rolls freightless to the shore. 
— Now dim amid the distant foam she spies 
A rising speck, — " Tis he ! 'tis he !" she cries ; 
As with firm arms he beats the streams aside, 
And cleaves with rising chest the tossing tide ; 
With bended knee she prints the humid sands, 
Up-turns her glistening eyes, and spreads her hands : 
— " 'Tis he, 'tis he .' — my Lord, my life, my love ! 
" Slumber, ye winds ; ye billows, cease to move ! 
•* Beneath his arms your buoyant plumage spread, 
" Ye Swans ! ye Halcyons ! hover round his head !" — 
— With eager step the boiling surf she braves, 
And meets her refluent lover in the waves ; 
Loose o'er the flood her azure mantle swims, 
And the clear stream betrays her snowy limbs. 

" So on her sea-girt tower fair Hero stood 
At parting day, and mark'd the dashing flood ; 
While high in air, the glimmering rocks above, 
Shone the bright lamp, the pilot-star of love. 
—With robe outspread the wavering flame behind 
She kneels, and guards it from the shifting wind ; 



Mga. 1. 386. Conferva agagropila. It is found loose in many lakes, in a 
globular form, from the size of a walnut to that of a melon, much resembling 
the balls of hair found in the stomachs of cows : it adheres to nothing, but 
rolls from one part of the lake to another. The Conferva vagabunda dwells 
on the European seas, travelling along in the midst of the waves. (Spec. 
Plant.) These may not improperly be called itinerant vegetables. In a simi- 
lar manner the Fucus natans (swimming) strikes no roots into the earth, but 
floats on the sea in very extensive masses, and may be said to be a plant of 
passage, as it is wafted by the winds from one shore to another. 



120 BOTANIC GAR D EX. Part II, 

Breathes to her Goddess all her vows, and guides 

Her bold Leander o'er the dusky tides ; 419 

Wrings his wet hair, his briny bosom warms, 

And clasps her panting lover in her arms. 

" Deep, in wide caverns and their shadowy aisles, 
Daughter of Earth, the chaste Truffelia smiles ; 
On silvery beds, of soft asbestus wove, 415 

Meets her Gnome-husband, and avows her love. 
— High o'er her couch impending diamonds blaze, 
And branching gold the crystal roof inlays ; 
With verdant light the modest emeralds glow, 
Blue sapphires glare, and rubies blush, below ; 420 

Light piers of lazuli the dome surround, 
And pictured mochoes tesselate the ground ; 
In glittering threads along reflective walls 
The warm rill murmuring, twinkles as it falls ; 
Now sink the Eolian strings, and now they swell, 425 

And Echoes woo in every vaulted cell ; 
While on white wings delighted Cupids play, 
Shake their bright lamps, and shed celestial day. 

" Closed in an azure fig by fairy spells, 
Bosom'cl in down, fair Capri-fica dwells ;-— 430 



Truffelia. I. 414. (Lycoperdon Tuber.) Truffle. Clandestine marriage. 
This fungus never appears above ground, requiring little air, and, perhaps, 
no light. It is found by dogs or swine, who hunt it by the smell. Other 
plants which have no buds or branches on their stems, as the grasses, shoot 
out numerous stoles or scions under ground ; and this the more, as their tops 
or herbs are eaten by cattle, and thus preserve themselves. 

Capri-ficus. 1. 430. Wild fig. The fruit of the fig is not a seed-vessel, but a 
receptacle enclosing the Sower within it. As these trees bear some male and 
others female flowers, immured on all sides by the fruit, the manner of their 
fecundation was very unintelligible, till Tournefort and Pontedera discovered, 
that a kind of gnat, produced in the male figs, carried the fecundating dust 
on its wings (Cynips Psenes Syst. Nat. 919), and, penetrating the female fig, 
thus impregnated the flowers. For the evidence of this wonderful fact, see 
the word Caprirication, in Milne's Botanical Dictionary. The figs of this 
country are all female, and their seeds not prolific ; and, therefore, they can 
only be propagated by layers and suckers. 

Monsieur de la Hire has shown, in the Memoir, de 1'Academ. des Sciences, 
that the summer figs of Paris, in Provence, Italy, and Malta, have all per- 
fect stamina, and ripen not only their fruits but their seed ; from which seed 
other fig-iregr. are raised ; but that the 3tamina of the autumnal figs are abor- 



Canto IV. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 121 

So sleeps in silence the Curculio, shut 

In the dark chambers of the cavern'd nut, 

Erodes with ivory beak the vaulted shell, 

And quits, on filmy wings, its narrow cell. 

So the pleased Linnet, in the moss-wove nest, 435 

Waked into life beneath its parent's breast, 

Chirps in the gaping shell, bursts forth erelong, 

Shakes its new plumes, and tries its tender song.-— 

— And now the talisman she strikes, that charms 

Ker husbandtSvlph, — and calls him to her arms. — ■ 440 

Quick, the light Gnat her airy Lord bestrides, 

With cobweb reins the flying courser guides, 

From crystal steeps of viewless ether springs, 

Cleaves the soft air on still expanded wings ; 

Darts like a sunbeam o'er the boundless wave, 445 

And seeks the beauty in her secret cave. 

So with quick impulse through all Nature's frame 

Shoots the electric air its subtle flame* 

So turns the impatient needle to the pole, 

Though mountains rise between, and oceans roll* 45Q 



tive, perhaps owing to the want of due warmth. Mr. Milne, in his Botani- 
cal Dictionary (art. Caprification), says, that the cultivated fig-trees have a. 
few male flowers placed above the female within the same covering or recep- 
tacle ; which in warmer climates perform their proper office, but in colder 
ones become abortive. And Linnaeus observes, that some figs have the na- 
vel of the receptacle open ; which was one reason that induced him to remove 
this plant from the class Clandestine Marriage to the class Polygamy. Lin. 
Spec. Plant. 

From all these circumstances I should conjecture, that those female fig- 
flowers, which are closed on all sides in the fruit or receptacle without any- 
male ones, are monsters which have been propagated for their fruit, like bar- 
berries, and grapes without seeds in them ; and that the caprification is either 
an ancient process of imaginary use, and blindly followed in some countries, or 
that it may contribute to ripen the fig by decreasing its vigour, like cutting 
off a circle of the bark from the branch of a pear-tree. Tournefort seems in- 
clined to this opinion ; who says, that the figs in Provence and at Paris ripen 
sooner if their buds be pricked with a straw dipped in olive oil. Plums and 
pears punctured by some insects ripen sooner, and the part round the puncture 
is sweeter. Is not the honey-dew produced by the puncture of insects ? Will 
not wounding the branch of a pear-tree which is too vigorous, prevent the 
blossoms from falling oil'; as from some fig-trees the fruit is said to fall off 
unless they are wounded by caprification ? I had last spring six young trees of 
the Ischia fig, with fruit on them, in pots in a stove ; on removing them into 
larger boxes, they protruded very vigorous shoots, and the figs all fell off; 
which I ascribed to the increased vigour of the plants. 

Part II. Q 



BOTANIC GARDEN. Part II, 

" Where round the Oflcades white torrents roar, 
Scooping with ceaseless rage the incumbent shore, 
Wide o'er the deep a dusky cavern bends 
Its marble arms, and high in air impends; 
Basaltic piers the ponderous roof sustain, 455 

And steep then- massy sandals in the main ; 
Round the dim walls, and through the whispering aisles, 
Hoarse breathes the wind, the glittering water boils. 
Here the charm' d Byssus, with his blooming bride, 
Spreads his green sails, and braves the foaming tide ; 460 

The star of Venus gilds the twilight wave, 
And lights her votaries to the secret cave ; 
Light Cupids nutter round the nuptial bed, 
And each coy Sea-maid hides her blushing head. 

" Where cool'd by rills, and curtain'd round by woods, 46 J 
Slopes the green dell to meet the briny floods, 
The sparkling noon-beams trembling on the tide, 
The Proteus-lover woos his playful bride. 



Basaltic piers. 1. 455. This description alludes to the cave of Fingal, in 
the island of Staffa. The basaltic columns, which compose the Giant's Cause- 
way on the coast of Ireland, as well as those which support the cave of Fin- 
gal, are evidently of volcanic origin, as is well illustrated in an ingenious 
paper of Mr. Keir, in tae Philos. Trans who observed in the glass, which 
had been long in a fusing heat at the bottom of the pots in the glass-houses 
at Stourbridge, that crystals were produced of a form similar to the parts of 
the basaltic columns of the Giant's Causeway. 

B;ssus. 1 459. Clandestine Marriage. It floats on the sea in the day, and 
sinks a little during the night ; it is found in caverns on the northern shores, 
of a pale green colour, and as thin as paper. 

The Proteus-lover. 1.468. Conferva polymorph a. This vegetable is put 
amongst the cryptogamia, or Clandestine Marriages, by Linnicus; but, ac- 
cording to Mr. Ellis, the males and females are on different plants. Philos. 
Trans, vol. lvii. It twice changes its colour, from red to brown, and then 
to black ; and changes its form by losing its lower leaves, and elongating 
some of the upper ones, so as to be mistaken by the unskilful for different 
plants. It grows on the shores of this country. 

1 i is another plant, Medicago polymorpha, which may be said to ar- 
Bume a great variety of shapes; as the seed-vessels resemble sometimes snail- 
homs, at other times caterpillars with or without long hair upon them; by 
which means it is probable they sometimes elude the depredations of those 
:i ' '. ■ ■ ds of Calendul i, Marigold, bend up like a hairy caterpillar, 

with their prickles bristling outwards, and may thus deter some birds or in* 
:;ccts from preying upon them. Salicornia also assumes an animal similitude. 
Phil Hot. p. 87. '3ec note on Iris in additional notes; and Cynrinedia, n: 
Part I. 



Canto IV. LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 123 

To win the fair he tries a thousand forms, 

Basks on the sands, or gambols in the storms. 470 

A Dolphin now, his scaly sides he laves, 

And bears the sportive Damsel on the waves ; 

She strikes the cymbal as he moves along, 

And wondering Ocean listens to the song. 

— And now a spotted Pard the lover stalks, 47J 

Plays round her steps, and guards her favour' d walks j 

As with white teeth he prints her hand, caress'd, 

And lays his velvet paw upon her breast, 

O'er his round face her snowy fingers strain 

The silken knots, and fit the ribbon-rein. 480 

• — And now a Swan, he spreads his plumy sails, 

And proudlv glides before the fanning gales ; 

Pleased on the flowery brink, with graceful hand, 

She waves her floating lover to the land ; 

Bright shines his sinuous neck, with crimson beak 4&S 

He prints fond kisses on her glowing cheek, 

Spreads his broad wings, elates his ebon crest, 

And clasps the beauty to his downy breast. 

" A hundred virgins join a hundred swains, 
And fond Adonis leads the sprighdy trains j 490 

Pair after pair, along his sacred groves 
To Hymen's fane the bright procession moves , 
Each smiling yGuth a myrtle garland shades, 
And wreaths of roses veil the blushing maids | 



Adonis. 1. 490. Many males and many females live together in the same 
flower. It may seem a solecism in language to call a flower which contains 
many of both sexes an individual ; and the more so to call a tree or shrub 
an individual, which consists of so many flowers. Every tree, indeed, ought 
to be considered as a family or swarm of its respective buds ; but the buds 
themselves seem to be individual plants; because each has leaves or lungs ap- 
propriated to it ; and the bark of the tree is only a congeries of the roots of 
all these individual buds. Thus hollow oak-trees and willows are often seen 
with the whole wood decayed and gone, and yet the few remaining branches 
flourish- with vigour; but in respect to the male and female parts of a flower, 
they do not destroy its individuality any more than the number of paps of a. 
sow, or the number of her cotyledons, each of which includes one of her 
young. 

The society called the Areoi, in the island of Otaheite, consists of about 
100 males and 100 females, who form one promiscuous marriage. 



124 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part IL 

Light Joys on twinkling feet attend the throng, 495 

Weave the gay dance, or raise the frolic song ; 

— Thick, as they pass, exulting Cupids fling 

Promiscuous arrows from the sounding string ; 

On wings of gossamer soft Whispers fly, 

And the sly glance steals side-long from the eye. 50C 

-—As round his shrine the guady circles bow, 

And seal with muttering lips the faithless vow, 

Licentious Hymen joins their mingled hands, 

And loosely twines the meretricious bands.— 

Thus where pleased Venus, in the southern main, 505 

Sheds all her smiles on Otaheite's plain, 

Wide o'er the isle her silken net she draws, 

And the Loves laugh at all but Nature's laws." 

Here ceased the Goddess,— o'er the silent strings 
Applauding Zephyrs swept their fluttering wings ; 510 

Enraptured Sylphs arose in murmuring crowds 
To air-wove canopies and pillowy clouds ; 
Each Gnome reluctant sought his earthy cell, 
And each chill Floret closed her velvet bell. 
Then, on soft tiptoe, Night approaching near 515 

Kung o'er the tuneless lyre his sable ear ; 
Gem'd with bright stars the still ethereal plain. 
And bade his Nightingales repeat the strain. 



BOTANIC GARDEN. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES. 



Additional note to Curcuma. Canto I. 1. 65. J. HESE antherless filaments 
seem to be an endeavour of the plant to produce more stamens, as would ap- 
pear from some experiments of Mr. Reynier, instituted for another purpose : 
he cut away the stamens of many flowers, with design to prevent their fecun- 
dity, and, in many instances, the flower threw out new filaments from the 
wounded part, of different lengths, but did not produce new anthers. The 
experiments were made on the geum rivale, different kinds of mallows, and 
the sechinops citro. Critical Review for March, 1788. 

Addition to the note on Iris. Canto 1. 1. 71. In the Persian Iris the end of the 
lower petal is purple, with white edges and orange streaks, creeping, as it were, 
into the mouth of the flower like an insect ; by which deception in its native 
climate it probably prevents a similar insect from plundering it of its honey; 
the edges of the lower petal lap over those of the upper one, which prevents 
it from opening too wide on fine days, and facilitates its return at night; 
whence the rain is excluded, and the air admitted. See Polymorpha, Rubia, 
and Cypripedia, in Part I. 

Additional note on Chondrilla. Canto I. 1. 97. In the natural state of the ex- 
panded flower of the barberry, the stamens lie on the petals ; under the concave 
summits of which the anthers shelter themselves, and in this situation remain 
perfectly rigid ; but on touching the inside of the filament near its base with 
a fine bristle, or blunt needle, the stamen instantly bends upwards, and the 
anther, embracing the stigma, sheds its dust. Observations on the Irritation 
of Vegetables, by T. E. Smith, M. D. 

Addition to the note on Siltne. Canto I. 1. 139. I saw a plant of the Dionaea 
Muscipula, Fly-trap of Venus, this day, in the collection of Sir B. Boothby, 
at Ashburn-Hall, Derbyshire, August 20th, 1788 ; and on drawing a straw 
along the middle of the rib of the leaves as they lay upon the ground round 
the stem, each of them, in about a second of time, closed and doubled itself 
up, crossing the thorns over the opposite edge of the leaf, like the teeth of a 
spring rat trap : of this plant I was favoured with an elegant coloured draw- 
ing, by Miss Maria Jackson, of Tarporly, in Cheshire, a lady who adds much 
fcotanical knowledge to many other elegant acquirements. 



126 BOTANIC GARDEN. Part II 

In the Apocynum Androsxmifolium, one kind of Dog's banc, the anthers 
converge over the nectaries, which consist of five glandular oval corpuscles 
surrounding the germ ; and, at the same time, admit air to the nectaries at 
the interstice between each anther. But when a fly inserts its proboscis be- 
tween these anthers to plunder the honey, they converge closer, and with 
such violence as to detain the fly, which thus generally perishes. This ac- 
count was related to me by R. W. Darwin, Esq. of Elston, in Nottingham- 
shire, who showed me the plant in flower, July 2d, 1788, with a fly thus held 
fast by the end of its proboscis, and was well seen by a magnifying lens, and 
which, in vain, repeatedly struggled to disengage itself, till the converging 
anthers were separated by means of a pin : on some days he had observed 
that almost every flower of this elegant plant had a fly in it thus entangled; 
and, a few weeks afterwards, favoured me with his further observations or. 
this subject. 

" My Apocynum is not yet out of flower. I have often visited it, and have 
*' frequently found four or five flies, some alive, and some dead, in its flowers ; 
" they are generally caught by the trunk or proboscis, sometimes by the trunk 
" and a leg : there is one at present only caught by a leg. I don't know that 
" this plant sleeps, as the flowers remain open in the night ; yet the flies fre- 
" quently make their escape. In a plant of Mr. Ordoyno's, an ingenious gar- 
" dener at Newark, who is possessed of a great collection of plants, I saw 
" many flowers of an Apocynum with three dead flies in each ; they are a 
" thin-bodied fly, and rather less than the common house-fly; but I have seen 
" two or three other sorts of flies thus arrested by the plant. August 11?, lTSS.' 1 

Additional note on Ilex. Canto I. 1. 161. The efficient cause which renders 
the hollies prickly, in Needwood Forest, only as high as the animals can reach 
them, may arise from the lower branches being constantly cropped by them, 
and thus shoot forth more luxuriant foliage : it is probable the shears in gar- 
den-hollies may produce the same effect, which is equally curious, as prickles 
are not thus produced on other plants. 

Additional note on Ul<oa. Canto I. 1.415. M. Hubert made some observations- 
on the air contained in the cavities of the bambou. The stems of these canes 
were from 40 to 50 feet in height, and 4 or 5 inches in diameter, and might con- 
tain about 30 pints of elastic air. He cut a bambou, and introduced a lighted 
candle into the cavity, which was extinguished immediately on its entrance 
He tried this about 60 times in a cavity of the bambou, containing about two 
pints. He introduced mice at different times into these cavities, which seemed 
to be somewhat affected, but soon recovered their agility. The stem of the 
bambou is not hollow till it rises more than one foot from the earth -. the divi- 
sions between the cavities are convex downwards. Observ snr la Physique, 
par M. Rozier, 1. 33. p. 130. 

Addition to the note on Tropiro!nm. Canto IV. 1. 45. In Sweden a very curious 
phenomenon has been observed on certain flowers, by M. Haggren, Lecturer 
in Natural History. One evening he perceived a faint flash of light I 




mfc ////// m ,t >y?Y>ztc&mj/p//( t 



DESCRIPTION OF THE BOHUN-UPAS. 127 

«Jart from a Marigold : surprized at such an uncommon appearance, he re- 
solved to examine it with attention ; and, to be assured that it was no decep- 
tion of the eye, he placed a man near him, with orders to make a signal at 
the moment when he observed the light. They both saw it constantly at the 
same moment. 

The light was most brilliant on Marigolds of an orange or flame colour ; 
but scarcely visible on pale ones. 

The flash was frequently seen on the same flower two or three times in 
quick succession, but more commonly at intervals of several minutes ; and 
when several flowers in the same place emitted their light together, it could b* 
observed at a considerable distance. 

This phenomenon was remarked in the months of July and August, at 
sun-set, and for half an hour after, when the atmosphere was clear ; but 
after a rainy day, or when the air was loaded with vapours, nothing of it was 
seen. 

The following flowers emitted flashes more or less vivid, in this order ; 

1. The Marigold, (Calendula Officinalis J. 

2. Garden Nasturtion, (Tropxolum majusj. 

3. Orange Lily, ( Lilium bulbiferum). 

4. African Marigold, (Tagetes patula et erectaj. 

Sometimes it was also observed on the Sun-flowers, ( Helianthus annuusj. 
But bright yellow, or flame colour, seemed in general necessary for the pro- 
duction of this light ; for it was never seen on the flowers of any other 
colour. 

To discover whether some little insects, or phosphoric worms, might not 
be the cause of it, the flowers were carefully examined even with a micro- 
scope, without any such being found. 

From the rapidity of the flash, and other circumstances, it might be conjec- 
tured, that there is something of electricity in this phenomenon. It is well 
known, that when the pistil of a flower is impregnated, the pollen bursts 
away by its elasticity, with which electricity may be combined. But M. 
Haggren, after having observed the flash from the Orange lily, the anthers 
of which are a considerable space distant from the petals, found that the light 
proceeded from the petals only ; whence he concludes that this electric light 
is caused by the pollen, which, in flying off, is scattered upon the petals. — 
Obser. Physique, par M. Rozier, vol. xxxiii. p. 111. 



Addition to the note on Upas. Canto III. 1. 238. Description of the Poison-Tree 
in the Island of 'Java. Translated from the original Dutch ofN. P. Foersch. 

This destructive tree is called, in the Malayan language, Bohan-Upas, 
and has been described by naturalists ; but their accounts have been so tinc- 
tured with the marvellous, that the whole narration has been supposed to be 
an inwnious fiction by the generality of readers. Nor is this in the least 
degree surprising, when the circumstances which we shall faithfully relate 
SCliption are considered. 



12S BOTANIC GARDEN". Pari U 

I must acknowledge, that I long doubted the existence of this tree, untrt 
a Stricter inquiry convinced me of my error. I shall now only relate simple 
unadorned facts, of which I have been an eye-witness. My readers may dc 
pend upon the fidelity of this account. In the year 17"4, I was stationed at 
BatStvia, as a surgeon, in the service of the Dutch East-India Company. 
During my residence there, I received several different accounts of the Bo- 
hun-Upas, and the violent effects of its poison. They all then seemed in- 
credible to me, but raised my curiosity in so high a degree, that I resolved to 
investigate this subject thoroughly, and to trust only to my awn observations. 
In consequence of this resolution, I applied to the Governor-General, Mr. 
Petrus Albertus van der Parra, for a pass to travel through the country : my 
request was granted ; and, having procured every information, I set out en 
my expedition. I had procured a recommendation from an old Malayan 
priest to another priest, who lives on the nearest inhabitable spot to the tree, 
which is about fifteen or sixteen miles distant. The letter proved of great 
service to me in my undertaking, as that priest is appointed by the Emperor 
to reside there, in order to prepare for eternity the souls of those who, for 
different crimes, are sentenced to approach the tree, and to procure the 
poison. 

The Bobun-Upas is situated in the island of Java, about twenty-seven 
leagues from Batavia, fourteen from Soura-Cbarta, the seat of the Emperor, 
and between eighteen and twenty leagues from Tinkjoe, the present residence 
of the Sultan of Java. It is surrounded on all sides by a circle of high hills 
and mountains ; and the country round it, to the distance of ten or twelve 
miles from the tree, is entirely barren. Not a tree, nor a shrub, nor even the 
least plant or grass, is to be seen. I have made the tour all around this dan- 
gerous spot, at about eighteen miles distant from the centre, and I found the 
aspect of the country on all sides equally dreary. The easiest ascent of the 
hills is from that part where the old ecclesiastic dwells. From his house the 
criminals are sent for the poison, into which the points of all warlike instru- 
ments are dipped. It is of high value, and produces a considerable revenue 
to the Emperor. 

Account of the manner in which the poison is procured. 

The poison which is procured from this tree, is a gum that issues out be- 
tween the bark and the tree itself, like the en mphor. Malefactors who, for 
their crimes, are sentenced to die, are the only persons who fetch the poison ; 
and this is the only chance they have of saving their lives. After sentence is 
pronounced upon them bv the judge, they are asked in court, whether they 
will die by the hands of the executioner, or whether they will go to the Upas 
tree for a box of poison? They commonlj prefer the latter proposal, as there 
is not only some chance of preserving their lives, but also a certainty, in case 
of their safe return, that a provision will be made for them in future by the 
Emperor. They are also permitted to ask a favour from the Emperor, which 
all) of a trifling nature, and commonly granted. They are then pro- 
vided with a silver or tortoise-shell box, is which the\ are to put the poison* 



DESCRIPTION OF THE BOHUN-UPAS. 129 

©us gum, and are properly instructed how to proceed while they are upon 
their dangerous expedition. Among other particulars, they are always told to 
attend to the direction of the winds ; as they are to go towards the tree be- 
fore the wind, so that the effluvia from the tree is always blown from them. 
They are told, likewise, to travel with the utmost dispatch, as that is the 
only method of insuring a safe return. They are afterwards sent to the house 
of the old priest, to which place they are commonly attended by their friends 
and relations. Here they generally remain some days, in expectation of a 
favourable breeze. During that time the ecclesiastic prepares them for their 
future fate by prayers and admonitions. 

When the hour of their departure arrives, the priest puts on them a long 
leather-cap, with two glasses before their eyes, which comes down as far as 
their breast ; and also provides them with a pair of leather gloves. They are 
then conducted by the priest, and their friends and relations, about two miles 
on their journey. Here the priest repeats his instructions, and tells them 
where they are to look for the tree. He shows them a hill, which they are 
told to ascend, and that on the other side they will find a rivulet, which they 
are to follow, and which will conduct them directly to the Upas. They now 
take leave of each other ; and, amidst prayers for their success, the delin- 
quents hasten away. 

The worthy old ecclesiastic has assured me, that during his residence there, 
for upwards of thirty years, he had dismissed above seven hundred criminals' 
in the manner which I have described ; and that scarcely two out of twenty 
have returned. He showed me a catalogue of all the unhappy sufferers, with 
the date of their departure from his house annexed; and a list of the offences 
for which they had been condemned : to which was added, a list of those who 
had returned in safety. I afterwards saw another list of these culprits, at the 
jail-keepers at Soura-Charta, and found that they perfectly corresponded with 
each other, and with the different informations which I aftervCards obtained. 

I was present at some of these melancholy ceremonies, and desired different 
delinquents to bring with them some pieces of the wood, or a small branch, 
or some leaves of this wonderful tree. I have also given them silk cords, de- 
siring them to measure its thickness. I never could procure more than two 
dry leaves that were picked up by one of them on his return ; and all I could 
learn from him, concerning the tree itself, was, that it stood on the border of 
a rivulet, as described by the old priest; that it was of a middling size ; that 
five or six young trees of the same kind stood close by it; but that no other 
shrub or planr could be seen near it; and that the ground was of a brownish 
sand, full of stones, almost impracticable for travelling, and covered with dead 
bodies. After many conversations with the old Malayan priest, I questioned 
him about the first discovery, and asked his opinion of this dangerous tree; 
upon which he gave me the following answer : 

" We are told in our new Alcoran, that, above a hundred years ago, the 
" country around the tree was inhabited by a people strongly addicted to the 
" sins of Sodom and Gomorrha ; when the great Frophet Mahomet deter- 
" mined not to suffer them to lead such detestable lives any longer, he applied 
'< to God to punish them : upon which God caused this tree to grow out of 

Part II. R 



130 BOTANIC GARDEN, Part IX 

" the earth, which destroyed them all, and rendered the country for ever un- 
" inhabitable." 

Such was the Malayan opinion. I shall not attempt to comment ; but must 
observe, that all the Malayans consider this tree as an holy instrument of the 
great Prophet to punish the sins of mankind ; and, therefore, to die of the poi- 
son of the Upas is generally considered among them as an honourable death. 
For that reason I also observed, that the delinquents, who were going to the 
tree, were generally dressed in their best apparel. 

"This, however, is certain, though it may appear incredible, that from fif- 
teen to eighteen miles round this tree, not only no human creature can exist, 
but that, in that space of ground, no living animal of any kind has ever been 
discovered. I have also been assured by several persons of veracity, that there 
are no fish in the waters, nor has any rat, mouse, or any other vermin, been 
seen there ; and when any birds fly so near this tree, that the effluvia reaches 
them, they fall a sacrifice to the effects of the poison. This circumstance 
has been ascertained by different delinquents, who, in their return, have seen 
the birds drop down, and have picked them up dead, and brought them to the 
okl ecclesiastic. 

I will here mention an instance, which proves the fact beyond all doubt, 
and which happened during my stay at Java. 

In 1775, a rebellion broke out among the subjects of the Massay, a 
sovereign prince,- whose dignity is nearly equal to that of the Emperor. They 
refused to pay a duty imposed upon them by their sovereign, whom they 
openly opposed. The Massay sent a body of a thousand troops to disperse the 
rebels, and to drive them with their families, out of his dominions. Thus? 
four hundred families, consisting of above sixteen hundred souls, were ob= 
Hged to leave their native country. Neither the Emperor nor the Sultan would 
give them protection, not only because they were rebels, but also through fear 
of displeasing their neighbour, the Massay. In this- distressful situation, they 
had no other resource than to repair to the uncultivated parts round the Upas,, 
and requested permission of the Emperor to settle there. Their request was 
granted, on condition of their fixing their abode not more than twelve or four- 
teen miles from the tree, in order not to deprive the inhabitants already settled 
there, at a greater distance, of their cultivated lands. With this they were 
obliged to comply; but the consequence was, that in less than two months 
their number was reduced to about three hundred. The chiefs of those who 
remained returned to the Massay, informed him of their losses, and intreated 
his pardon, which induced him to receive them again as subjects, thinking 
them sufficiently punished for their misconduct. I have seen and conversed 
with several of those who survived, soon after their return. They all had the 
appearance of persons tainted with an infectious disorder; they looked pale 
and weak, and, from the account which they gave of the loss of their com- 
rades, and of the symptoms and circumstances which attended their dissolu- 
tion, such as convulsions, and other signs of a violent death, I was fully con- 
vinced that they fell victims to the poison. 

This violent effect of the poison at so great a distance from the tree cer- 
tainly appears surprising, and almost incredible; and especially, when we 



DESCRIPTION OF THE BOHUN-UPAS. 1$ 

consider that it is possible for delinquents who approach the tree to return 
alive. My wonder, however, in a great measure, ceased, after I had made 
the following; observations : 

I have said before, that malefactors are instructed to go to the tree with 
the wind, and to return against the wind. When the wind continues to 
blow from the same quarter while the delinquent travels thirty, or six and 
thirty miles, if he be of a good constitution, he certainly survives. But what 
proves the most destructive is, that there is no dependence on the wind in that 
part of the world for any length of time. — There are no regular land-winds; 
and the sea-wind is not perceived there at all, the situation of the tree 
being at too great a distance, and surrounded by high mountains and unculti- 
vated forests. Besides, the wind there never blows a fresh regular gale, but 
is commonly merely a current of light, soft breezes, which pass through the 
different openings of the adjoining mountains. It is also frequently difficult 
to determine from what part of trie globe the wind really comes, as it is di- 
vided by various obstructions in its passage, which easily change the direction 
of the wind, and often totally destroy its effects. 

I, therefore, impute the distant effects of the poison, in a great measure, 
to the constant gentle winds in those parts, which have not power enough to 
disperse the poisonous particles. If high winds were more frequent and dura- 
ble there, they would certainly weaken very much, and even destroy the ob- 
noxious effluvia of the poison ; but without them the air remains infected and 
pregnant with these poisonous vapours. 

I am the more convinced of this, as the worthy ecclesiastic assured me, 
that a dead calm is always attended with the greatest danger, as there is a 
continual perspiration issuing from the tree, which is seen to rise and spread 
in the air, like the putrid steam of a marshy cavern. 

Experiments made with the Gum of the Upas-Tree. 

In the year 177-6, in the month of February, I was present at the execution 
of thirteen of the Emperor's concubines, at Soura-Charta, who were convict- 
ed of infidelity to the Emperor's bed. It was in the forenoon, about eleven 
o'clock, when the fair criminals were led into an open space, within the 
walls of the Emperor's palace. There the judge passed sentence upon them, 
by which they were doomed to suffer death by a lancet, poisoned with Upas. 
After this the Alcoran was presented to them, and they were, according to 
the law of their great prophet Mahomet, to acknowledge and to affirm by 
oath, that the charges brought against them, together with the sentence and 
their punishment, were fair and equitable. This they did, by laying their 
right hand upon the Alcoran, their left hand upon their breast, and their eyes 
lifted towards heaven ; the judge then held the Alcoran to their lips, and 
they- kissed it. 

These ceremonies over, the executioner .proceeded on his business in the 
following manner : — Thirteen posts, each about five feet high, had been pre- 
viously erected. To these the delinquents were fastened, and their breasts 
airipped naked. In this situation they remained a short time in continual 



t3B BOTANIC GARDEN. Part II. 

prayers, attended by several priests, until a signal was given by the judge to 
the executioner ; on which the latter produced an instrument, much like the 
spring lancet used by farriers for bleeding horses. With this instrument, 
it being poisoned with the gum of the Upas, the unhappy wretches were 
lanced in the middle of their breasts, and the operation was performed upon 
them all in less than two minutes. 

My astonishment was raised to the highest degree, when I beheld the sud- 
den effects of that poison ; for in about five minutes after they were lanced 
they were taken with a tremor, attended with a suhsuttus tendinum; after 
which they died in the greatest agonies, crying out to God and Mahomet for 
mercy. In sixteen minutes by my watch, which I held in my hand, all the 
criminals were no more. Some hours after their death, I observed their 
bodies full of livid spots, much like those of the Petechia, their faces swelled, 
their colour changed to a kind of blue, their eyes looked yellow, Sic. &c. 

About a fortnight after this I had an opportunity of seeing such another 
execution at Samarang. Seven Malayans were executed there with the same 
instrument, and in the same manner ; and I found the operation in the 
poison, and the spots in their bodies, exactly the same. 

These circumstances made me desirous to try an experiment with some 
animals, in order to be convinced of the real effects of this poison ; and as I 
had then two young puppies, I thought them the fittest objects for my pur- 
pose. I accordingly procured, with great difficulty, some grains of Upas. I 
dissolved half a grain of that gum in a small quantity of arrack, and dipped a 
lancet into it. With this poisoned instrument I made an incision in the 
lower muscular part of the belly in one of the puppies. Three minutes after 
it received the wound the animal began to cry out most piteously, and ran as 
fast as possible from one corner of the room to. the other. So it continued 
during six minutes, when all its strength being exhausted, it fell upon the 
ground, was taken with convulsions, and died in the eleventh minute. I re- 
peated this experiment with two other puppies, with a cat and a fowl, and 
found the operation of the poison in all of them the same : none of these 
animals survived above thirteen minutes. 

I thought it necessary to try also the effect 6f the poison given inwardly, 
which I did in the following manner. I dissolved a quarter of a grain of the 
gum in half an ounce of arrack, and made a dog of seven months old drink 
it. Ift seven minutes a retching ensued, and I observed, at the same time, 
that the animal was delirious, as it ran up and down the room, fell on the 
ground, and tumbled about ; then it rose again, cried out very loud, and in 
about half an hour after was seized with convulsions, and died. I opened 
the body, and found the stomach very much inflamed, as the intestines were 
in some parts, but not so much as the stomach. There was a small quantity 
of coagulated blood in the stomach ; but I could discover no oriiice from 
which it could have issued ; and therefore supposed it to have been squeezed 
out of the lungs, by the animal's straining while it was vomiting. 

From these experiments 1 have been convinced that the gum of the Upar, 
is the most dangerous and most violent of all vegetable poisons ; and I am 
apt to believe that it greatly contributes to the unhealthiness of that island. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE BOA-UPAS. 13i 

ftor is this the only evil attending it : hundreds of the natives of Java, as 
well as Europeans, are yearly destroyed and treacherously murdered by that 
poison, either internally or externally. Every man of quality or fashion has 
his dagger or other arms poisoned with it ; and in times of war the Malayans 
poison the springs and other waters with it. By this treacherous practice: 
the Dutch suffered greatly during the last war, as it occasioned the loss of 
half their army. For this reason they have ever since kept fish in the springs 
of which they drink the water, and sentinels are placed near them, who in- 
spect the waters every hour, to see whether the fish are alive. If they march 
with an army or body of troops into an enemy's country, they always carry 
live fish with them, which they throw into the water some hours before they 
venture to drink it ; by which means they have been able to prevent their 
total destruction. 

This account, I flatter myself, will satisfy the curiosity of my readers, and 
the few facts which I have related will be considered as a certain proof of the 
existence of this pernicious tree, and its penetrating effects. 

If it be asked why we have not yet any more satisfactory accounts of this 
tree, I can only answer, that the object of most travellers to that part of 
the world consists more in commercial pursuits than in the study of Natural 
History and the advancement of Sciences. Besides, Java is so universally 
reputed an unhealthy island, that rich travellers seldom make any long stay 
in it ; and others want money, and generally are too ignorant of the language 
to travel, in order to make inquiries. In future, those who visit this island 
will now probably be induced to make it an object of their researches, and 
will furnish us with a fuller description of this tree. 

I will, therefore, only add, that there exists also a sort of Cajoe-Upas on 
the coast of Macasser, the poison of which operates nearly in the same man- 
ner, but is not half so violent or malignant as that of Java, and of which 
I shall likewise give a more circumstantial account in a description of that 
island. — London Magazine. 



Another account of the Boa- Upas, or Poison-Tree of Macasser, from an inau- 
gural dissertation published by Christ. Aejmelaeus, and approved by Professor 
Thunberg, at Upsal. 

Doctor Aejmelaeus first speaks of poisons in general, enumerating many 
virulent ones from the mineral and animal, as well as from the vegetable 
kingdoms of nature. Of the first he mentions arsenical, mercurial, and an- 
timonial preparations ; amongst the second he mentions the poisons of seve- 
ral serpents, fishes, and insects; and amongst the last the Curara on the 
bank of the Oronoko, and the Woorara on the banks of the Amazones, and 
many others. But he thinks the strongest is that of a tree hitherto unde- 
scribed, known by the name of Boa-Upas, which grows in many of the 
warmer parts of India, principally in the islands of Java, Sumatra, Borneo, 
Bali, Macasser, and Celebes. 



134 BOTANIC GARDEN Tart II- 

Rumphius testifies concerning this Indian poison, that it was more terri- 
ble to the Dutch than any warlike instrument; it is by him styled Arbor 
toxicaria, and he mentions two species of it, which he terms male and female ; 
and describes the tree as having a thick trunk, with spreading branches, co- 
vered with a rough dark bark. The wood, he adds, is very solid, of a pale 
yell.v. , and variegated with black spots; but the fructification is yet un- 
known. 

Professor Thunberg supposes the Boa-Upus to be a Cestrum, or a tree of 
the same natural family ; and describes a Cestrum of the Cape of Good-Hope, 
the juice of which the Hottentots mix with the venom of a certain serpent, 
which is said to increase the deleterious quality of them both. 

The Boa-Upas tree is easily recognized at a distance, being always solitary, 
the soil around it being barren, and, as it were, burnt up ; the dried juice is 
dark brown, liquifying by heat, like other resins. It is collected with the 
greatest caution, the person having his head, hands, and feet carefully co- 
vered with linen, that his whole body may be protected from the vapour a* 
well as from the droppings of the tree. No one can approach so near as to 
gather the juice ; hence they supply bamboos, pointed like a spear, which they 
thrust oblquely, with great force, into the trunk ; the juice oozing out gra- 
dually fills the upper joint ; and the nearer the root the wound is made, the 
:nore virulent the poison is supposed to be. Sometimes upwards of twenty 
yeeds are left fixed in the tree for three or four days, that the juice may collect 
and harden in the cavities ; the upper joint of the reed is then cut off from 
the remaining part, the concreted juice is formed into globules or sticks, and 
is kept in hollow reeds, carefully closed, and wrapped in tenfold linen. It 
5s every week taken out to prevent its becoming mouldy, which spoils it. The 
deleterious quality appears to be volatile, since it loses much of its power in 
the time of one year, and in a few years becomes totally efiete. 

The vapour of the tree produces numbness and spasms of the limbs, and 
If any one stands under it bare-headed, he loses his hair; and if a drop fab<> 
on him, violent inflammation ensues. Birds which sit on the branches a 
short time drop down dead, and can even with difficulty fly over it ; and 
not only no vegetables grow under it, but the ground is barren a stone's cast 
ground it. 

A person wounded by a dart poisoned with this juice feels immediately a 
sense of heat over his whole body, with great vertigo, to which death soon 
succeeds. A person wounded with the Java poison was affected with tremor 
tA the limbs, and starting of the tendons in five minutes, and died in less than 
sixteen minutes, with marks of great anxiety; the corpse, in a few hours, 
was covered with petechial spots, and the face became tumid and lead-co- 
loured, and the white part of the eye became yellow. 

The natives try the strength of their poison by a singular test ; some of 
the expressed juice of the root of Amomum Zerumbet is mixed with a little 
water, and a bit of the poisonous gum or resin is dropped into it ; an eller- 
vescence instantly takes place, by the violence of which they judge of tha 
: tn n-th of the poison. — What air can be extricated during this cilervesccnce ' 
— This experiment is said to be dangerous to the operator. 



FAIRY-SCENE. 133 

As the juice is capable of being dissolved in arrack, and is thence supposed 
to be principally of a resinous nature, the Professor does not credit that foun- 
tains have been poisoned with it. 

This poison has been employed as a punishment for capital crimes in Ma- 
casser and other islands } in those cases some experiments have been made, 
and when a finger only had been wounded with a dart, the immediate am- 
putation of it did not save the criminal from death. 

The poison from what has been termed the female tree, is less deleterious 
than the other, and has been used chiefly in hunting; the carcases of animals 
thus destroyed are eaten with impunity. The poison-juice is said to be used 
externally as a remedy against other poisons, in the form of a plaster ; also 
to be used inierr.ally for the same purpose; and is believed to alleviate the 
pain, and extract the poison of venomous insects sooner than any other ap- 
plication. The author concludes that these accounts have been exaggerated 
by Mahomedan pjriests, who have persuaded their followers that the Prophet 
Mahomet planted this noxious tree as a punishment for the s'.ns of mankind. 

An abstract of this Dissertation of C. Aejmelaeus is given in Dr. Duncan's 
Medical Commentaries for the year 1790, Decad. 2d. vol. v. 



FAIRY-SCENE. 
From Mr. Mundfs Nee&wood Forest. Referred to in Canto IV. 1. 35, 

Here, seen of old, the elfin race 
With sprightly vigils mark'd the place ; 
Their gay processions charm'd the sight, 
Gilding the lucid noon of night ; 
Or, when obscure the midnight hour, 
With glow-worm lantherns hung the bower, 
— Hark !— the soft lute ! — along the green 
Moves with majestic step the Queen ! 
Attendant Fays around her throng, 
And trace the dance or raise the song ; 
Or touch the shrill reed, as they trip. 
With finger light and ruby lip. 

High, on her brow sublime, is borne 
One scarlet woodbine's tremulous horn ; 
A gaudy Bee-bird's* triple plume 
Sheds on her neck its waving gloom ; 
With silvery gossamer entwined 
Stream the luxuriant locks behind. 



'• The humming-bird. 



BOTANIC GARDEN. 

Thin folds of tangled network break 

In airy waves adown her neck ; — 

Warp'd in his loom, the spider spread 

The far-diverging rays of thread, 

Then round and round with shuttle fine 

Inwrought the undulating line ; — 

Scarce hides the woof her bosom's snow. 

One pearly nipple peeps below. 

One rose-leaf forms her crimson vest, 

The loose edge crosses o'er her breast ; 

And one translucent fold, that fell 

From the tall lily's ample bell, 

Forms with sweet grace her snow-white train, 

Flows, as she steps, and sweeps the plain. 

Silence and Night enchanted gaze, 

And Hesper hides his vanquish'd rays ! — 

Now the waked reed-finch swells his throat, 
And night-larks trill their mingled note ; 
Yet hush'd in moss with writhed neck 
The blackbird hides his golden beak ; 
Charm'd from his dream of love he wakes, 
Opes his gay eye, his plumage shakes. 
And, stretching wide each ebon wing, 
First in low whispers tries to sing ; 
Then sounds his clarion loud, and thrills 
The moon-bright lawns, and shadowy hills. 
Silent the choral Fays attend, 
And then their silver voices blend, 
Each shining thread of sound prolong, 
And weave the magic woof of song. 
Pleased Philomela takes her stand 
On high, and leads the Fairy band, 
Pours sweet at intervals her strain, 
And guides with beating wing the train. 
Whilst interrupted Zephyrs bear 
Hoarse murmurs from the distant wear; 
And at each pause is heard the swell 
Of Echo's soft symphonious shell. 



LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 



CATALOGUE 



POETIC EXHIBITION. 



CANTO I. 




CANTO II. 




Group of insects 


21 


Air-balioon of Montgolner 


Line. 
25 


Tender husband 


39 


Arts of weaving and spinning 


67 


Self-admirer 


45 


Arkwright's cotton mills 


85 


Rival lovers 


51 


Invention of letters, figures, and 


Coquet 


61 


crotchets 


105 


Platonic wife 


65 


Mrs. Delany's paper-garden 


155 


Monster-husband 


77 


Mechanism of a watch, and de 




Rural happiness 


85 


sign for its case 


165 


Clandestine marriage 


93 


Time, hours, moments 


IS J 


Sympathetic lovers 


97 


Transformation of Nebuchadnez- 




Ninon d'Enclos 


125 


zar 


211 


Harlots 


139 


St. Anthony preaching to fish 


245 


Giants 


161 


Sorceress 


267 


Mr. Wright's paintings 


175 


Miss Crewe's drawings 


295 


Thalestris 


191 


Song to May 


309 


Autumnal scene 


197 


Frost scene 


333 


Dervise procession 


221 


Discovery of the bark 


347 


Lady in full dress 
Lady on a precipice 


229 


Moses striking the rock 


405 


249 


Dropsy 


415 


Palace in the sea 


263 


Mr. Howard and prisons 


439 


Vegetable lamb 


281 






Whale 


289 


CANTO III. 




Sensibility 


299 






Mountain-scene by night 


345 


Witch and imps in a church 


7 


Lady drinking water 


359 


Inspired Priestess 


29 


Lady and cauldron 


373 


Fuseli's night-mare 


51 


Medea and iEson 


381 


Cave of Thor and subterranean 




Aerial lady 


391 


Naiads 


85 


Forlorn nymph 


401 


Medea and children 


135 


Galatea on the sea 


421 


Palmira weeping 


197 


Lady frozen to a statue 


435 


Group of wijd creatures drinking 205 


Part II. 


s 







BOTANIC GARDEN 



Poison-tree of Java 219 

Time and hours 255 

Wounded deer 263 

Lady shot in battle 269 

Harlots 329 

Laocoon and his sons 335 

Drunkards and diseases 357 

Prometheus and the vulture 371 
Lad> burying her child in the plague 387 

Moses concealed on the Nile 421 

Slavery of the Africans 439 

Weeping muse 465 

CANTO IV. 

Maid of night 13 

Fairies 33 

Electric lady 43 
Shadrec, Meshec and Abednego 

in the fiery furnace 55 

Shepherdesses 73 

Song to Echo 79 

Kingdom of China 107 

Lady and distaff 115 

Cupid spinning 133 

Lady walking in snow 137 

Children at play 147 



ISnt. 
159 
175 
199 
203 
221 
245 



Venus and Loves 

Matlock Bath 

Angel bathing 

Mermaid and Nereids 

Lady in salt 

Lot's wife 

Lady in regimentals 283 

Dejanira in a lion's skin 289 

Offspring from the marriage of 

the Rose and Nightingale 309 

Parched deserts in Africa 325 

Turkish lady in an undress 335 

Ice-scene in Lapland 363 

Lock-lomond by moonlight 385 

Hero and Leander 403 
Gnome-husband and palace under 

ground 413 

Lady enclosed in a fig 429 

Sylph-husband 439 

Marine cave 451 

Proteus lover 465 

Lady on a Dolphin 471 

Lady bridling a Pard 475 

Lady saluted by a Swan- 481 

Hymeneal procession 489 

Night 515 



LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 



CONTENTS OF THE NOTES. 



CANTO I. 

Slahe. 
EEDS of Carina, used for prayer-beads 39 

Stems and leaves of Callitriche so matted together as they float on the 

water, as to bear a person walking on them 45 

The female in Collinsonia approaches first to one of the males, and then 
to the other. Females in Nigella and Epilobium bend towards the 
males for some days, and then leave them 51 

The stigma, or head of the female, in Spartium (common broom) is 
produced amongst the higher set of males ; but when the keel-leaf 
opens, the pistil suddenly twists round like a French-horn, and places 
the stigma amidst the lower set of males 57^ 

The two lower males in Ballota become mature before the two higher, 
and, when their dust is shed, turn outwards from the female. The 
plants of the class Two Powers, with naked seeds, are all aromatic ; 
of these, Marum and Nepeta are delightful to cats 60 

The filaments in Meadia, Boiago, Cyclamen, Solanum, 8cc. shown by 

reasoning to be the most unchangeable parts of those flowers 61 

Rudiments of two hinder wings are seen in the class Diptera, or two- 
winged insects. Teats of male animals. Filaments without anthers 
in Curcuma, Linum, &c. and styles without stigmas in many plants, 
show the advance of the works of nature towards greater perfection 65 
Double flowers, or vegetable monsters, how produced 69, 77 

The calyx and lower series of petals not changed in double flowers 63 

Dispersion of the dust in nettles and other plants 73, 75 

Cedar and Cypress unperisliable 75 

Anthoxanthum gives the fragrant scent to hay 86 

Viviparous plants : the Aphis is viviparous in summer, ana oviparous in 

autumn ibid 

Irritability of the stamen of the plants of the class Syngenesia, or Con- 
federate males 97 
Some of the males in Lychnis, and other flowers, arrive sooner at their 

maturity 108, 119 

Males approach the female in Gloriosa, Fritillaria, and Kalmia 119 

Contrivances to destroy insects in Silene, Dionaca Muscipula, Arum Mus- 

civorum, Dypsacus, &.c. 139 

Some bell-flowers close at night ; others hang the mouths downwards ; 
others nod and turn from the wind ; stamens bound down to the pistil^ 
in Amaryllis Formosissima ; pistil is crooked in Hemerocallis Flava, 
yellow day-lily 152 



14§ BOTANIC GARDEN. Fart II 

Thorns and prickles designed frr the defence of the plant. Tall Hollies 
have no prickles above the reach of cattle. Bird-lime from the bark 
of Hollies like elastic gum 161 

Adansonia the largest tree known. Its dimensions 183 

Bulbous roots contain the embryon flower, seen by dissecting a tulip-root 204 
Flowers of Cokhicum and Hamameks appear in autumn, and ripen their 

seed in the spring following 212 

Sun-flower turns to the sun by nutation, not by gyration 221 

Ds;>.rsion of seeds 224 

Dr sera catches flies 229 

Of the nectary, its structure to preserve the honey from insects 241 

Curious proboscis of the Sphinx Convolvuli ibid 

Final cause of the resemblance of some flowers to insects, as the Bee- 
orchis ibid 
In some plants of the class Tetradynamia, or Four Powers, the two 

shorter stamens, when at maturity, rise as high as the others 250 

Ice in the caves on Tenerif, which were formerly hollowed by volcanic 

fires ibid 

Some parasites do not injure trees, as Tillandsia and Epidcndrum 258 

Mosses growing on trees injure them ibid 

Marriages of plants necessary to be celebrated in the air 264 

Insects with legs on their backs ibid 

Scarcity of grain in wet seasons ibid 

Tartarian lamb. Use of down on vegetables. Air, glass, wax, and fat, 
are bad conductors of heat. Snow does not moisten the living animals 
buried in it, illustrated by burning camphor in snow 282 

Of the collapse of the sensitive plant 299 

Birds of passage 320 

The acquired habits of plants ibid 

Irritability of plants increased by previous exposure to cold ibid 

Lichen produces the first vegetation on rocks 347 

Plants holding water .. 365 

Madder colours the bones of young animals 373 

Colours of animals serve to conceal them ibid 

Warm bathing retards old age 385 

Plant living on air without taking root 393 

Male flowers of Vallisneria detach themselves from the plant, and float 

to the female ones 403 

Air in the cells of plants, its various uses 415 

Air-bladders of fish ibid 

How Mr. Day probably lost his life in his diving-ship ibid 

Star-jelly is voided by Herons 435 

Intoxicating mushrooms ibid 

Mushrooms grow without light, and approach to awimal nature ibid 



CANTO II. 

Seeds of Tillandsia fly on long threads, like spider;; on the gossamer 7 

Account of cotton miils 87 

Invention of letters, figures, crotchets 105 

Mrs. Delany's and Mrs. North's paper-gardens 15b 

The horologe of Flora 165 
The white petals of Helleborus rriger become first red and then change 

into a green calyx 20 1 



PartH. contents OF THE NOTES. lii 

Line. 

Berries of Menispermnm intoxicate fish 229 

Effects of opium 270 

Frontispiece by Miss Crewe 295 

Petals of Cistus and CEnothera continue but a few hours 305 

Method of collecting the gum from Cistus by leathern thongs ibid 

Discovery of the bark 349 

Foxglove, how used in dropsies 425 

Bishop of Marseilles and Lord Mayor of London 435 



Superstitious uses of plants, the divining rod, animal magnetism 7 

Intoxication of the Pythian priestess, poison from Laurel leaves, and 

from cherry kernels 40 

Sleep consists in the abolition of voluntary power. Night-mare explained 74 
Indian fig emits slender cords from its summit 86 

Cave of Thor in Derbyshire, and subterraneous rivers explained 90 

The capsule of the Geranium makes an hygrometer 131 

Barley creeps out of a barn. Mr. Edgworth's creeping hygrometer ibid 

Flower of Fraxinella flashes on the approach of a candle ' 184 

Essential oils narcotic, poisonous, deleterious to insects ibid 

Dew-drops from Mancinella blister the skin. Uses of poisonous juices 
in the vegetable economy. The fragrance of plants a part of their 
defence 188 

The sting and poison of a nettle 191 

Vapour from Lobelia suffocative. Unwholesomeness of perfumed hair- 
powder 193 
Ruins of Palmira 197 
The poison-tree of Java 238 
Tulip roots die annually 259 
Hyacinth and Ranunculus roots ibid 
Vegetable contest for air and light 329 
Some voluble stems turn E. S. W. and others W. S. E. Tops of white 

Bryony as grateful as Asparagus ibid 

Fermentation converts sugar into spirit, food into poison 357 

Fable of Prometheus applied to dram-drinkers 371 

Cyclamen buries its seeds and trifolium subterraneum 381 

Pits dug to receive the dead in the plague 408 

Lakes of America consist of fresh water 413 

The seeds of Cassia and some others are carried from America, and 

thrown on the coasts of Norway and Scotland 415 

Of the Guif-stream ibid 

Wonderful change predicted in the gulf of Mexico iWd 



CANTO IV. 

In the flowers of Cactus grandiflorus, and Cistus, some of the stamens 

are perpetually bent to the pistil 
Nyc'anthes and others are only fragrant in the night. Cucurbita lage- 

naria closes when the sun shines on it i 



142 BOTANIC GARDEN Paht II. 

Tropacolum, Nasturtion, emits sparks in the twilight. Nectary on its 

calyx 45 

Phosphorescent lights in the evening. Hot embers eaten by bull-frogs 51 
Long filaments of grasses, the cause of bad seed-wheat 73 

Chinese hemp grew in England above '4 feet in five months 115 

Roots of snow-drop and hyacinth insipid, like orchis 137 

Orchis will ripen its seeds if the new bulb be cut off ibid 

Proliferous flowers 148 

The wax on the candle-berry myrtle said to be made by insects 155 

The warm springs of Matlock produced by the condensation of steam 

raised from great depths by subterranean fires 179 

Air separated from water by the attraction of points to water being less 

than that of the particles of water to each other 195 

Minute division of sub-aquatic leaves. Water-cress, and other aquatic 

plants, inhabit all climates 204 

Butomus esculent. Lotus of Egypt. Nymphata ibid 

Ocymum covered with salt every night 225 

Salt a remote cause of scrophula, and immediate cause of sea-scurvy ibid 

Coloured spatha of Arum, and blotched leaves, if they serve the pur- 
pose of a coloured petal 285 
Tulip roots with a red cuticle produce red flowers ibid 
Of vegetable mules the internal parts, as ihose of fructification, resem- 
ble the female parent, and the external parts, the male one. The same 
occurs in animal mules, as the common mule and the hinnus, and in 
sheep 303 
The wind called Harmattan from volcanic eruptions. Some epidemic 

coughs or influenza have the same origin 328 

Fish killed in the sea, by dry summers, in Asia 334 

Hedysarum gyrans perpetually moves its leaves like the respiration of 

animals 355 

Plants possess a voluntary power of motion ibid 

Loud cracks from ice-mountains explained 370 

Muschus Corallinus vegetates below the snow, where the heat is always 

about 40 3"5 

Quick growth of vegetables in northern latitudes, after the solution of 

the snows, explained ibid 

The Rail sleeps in the snow ibid 

Conferva xgagropila rolls about the bottom of lakes 386 

Lycoperdon Tuber, Truffle, requires no light 414 

Account of caprification 430 

Figs wounded with a straw, and pears and plumbs wounded by insects 

ripen sooner, and become sweeter ibid 

Female figs closed on all sides, supposed to be monsters ibid 

Basaltic columns produced by volcanos, shown by their form 455 

Byssus floats on the sea in the day, and sinks in the night 459 

Conferva polymorphs twice changes its colour and its form 466 

Some seed-vessels and seeds resemble insects ibid 

Individuality of flowers not destroyed by the number of males or females 

which they contain. 490 

r rrcs r:rc swarms of buds, which are individual:? ib,id 



LOVES OF THE PLANTS. 



INDEX 

TO THE 

NAMES OF THE PLANTS. 



A Page. 

DO'NIS 123 

jEgagropila s 119 

A'kea 15 

Amary'llis . 20 

Anemone 30 

Anthox£nthum 16 

Arum 113 

Avena 104 

Bdrometz 28 

Bellis 107 

Byssus 122 

Cdctus 101 

Calendula 53 

Callitriche . 12 

Canna 12 

Cannabis 106 

Capri-ficus 120 

Carlina 47 

Caryophy'llus . . ' . . . . 114 

Cassia 86 

Cereus 101 

Chondrilla 17 

Chunda 116 

Cinchona ....... 60 

Circaea 69 

Cistus 58 

Cocculus 56 

Colchicum 23 

Collinsonia 

Conferva 119, 122 

Cupre"ssus 

Curcuma 

Cuscuta 

Cy'clamen 85 

Cyperus 51 



Pag?. 

Diamhus 114 

Dicramnus 76 

Digitalis 62 

Dodecatheon 14 

Draba 26 

Dr6sera 24 

D/psacus 32 

Epidendrum . 34 

Ffcus 72 

Fucus 109 

Fraxin&Ia 7S 

Galanthus 106 

Genista 13 

Glonosa . 18 

Gossy'pium 50 

Hedy'sarum 117 

Heliamhus 24 

Helleborus ....... 55 

Hippomane 77 

Ilex 21 

Impatiens 74 

Iris 15 

Kleinh6via 22 

Lapsana 55 

L&uro-cerasus 70 

Lichen 31 

Lfnum 49 

Lobelia 77 

Lonicera 25 

Lychnis 18 

Lycoperdon 129 



BOTANIC GARDEN 



Manilla 77 

M^adia 14 

Melissa 13 

Menispermum 56 

Mim6sa 29 

Muschus 118 

Nymphxa 53 

Nelumbo 117 

'Ocymum Ill 

Orchis 80 

Osmunda 17 

Osy'ris 16 

57 



SUne 19 

Trapa HO 

Tremclla 36 

Tropx'olum 103 

Truiiaa 120 



Tiilipa . 

Ulva . 
Upas . 
Urtica . 



23 

35 
79 

77 



Papaver 

Papy'rus 51 

Plantago 16 

Polymorphs 122 

Polypodium 28 Zostera 



Vfscum 
Vitis . 



Directions to the Binder for placing the Engravings. 

PART I. 

Flora attired by the Elements to face the Title-page. P^r. 

Hope attended by Peace, and Art, and Labour \ f 

A Slave in Chains $ 

Fertilization of Egypt 81 

Cyprepedium 125 

Erythrina Cora\odendron 127 

Portland Vase 197 

first Compartment 198 

■ — ■ — second Compartment 200 

Handles and Bottom 203 

Section of a Coal-Mhie 210 

Section of the Earth 212 

PART II. 

Flora at play with Cupid to face the Title-page. 

The plates with Nos. I. to XXIV. to be doubled and placed at the end 

of the preface 

Meadia to face 14 

Gloriosa Superba 18 

Dionsea Muscipula 19 

Amaryllis Formosissima 20 

Barometz. Vegetable Lamb 28 

Vallisneria Spiralis 34 

Nightmare 71 

Hedysarum gyrans 116 

Apocynum Androssernjfoli in 126 



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